It unfolded so differently. The first that we heard about it was the announcement of the arrests, not rumors. Watergate began with the weird story that five men had been arrested for an overnight break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Complex in the early hours of Saturday, June 17, 1972. It didn\u2019t take the press long to be on top of the story. The Washington Post\u2019s Robert Woodward was at the arraignment that very morning. He quickly learned enough to ask the high-priced attorney of the \u201cstreet burglars\u201d why one of them had an address book that included names from the White House.<\/p>\n
From that point on, no sooner did new actors appear on the stage than they began to fall, one by one. No matter how fine a job Woodward and Bernstein and other investigative reporters had done (don\u2019t forget Daniel Schorr from CBS), the story might have died quickly had it not quickly entered the judicial system. Even the Congressional hearings conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee might have discovered very little had it not had the benefit of the subpoena powers of the judiciary.<\/p>\n
This is what\u2019s missing in the story about Donald Trump, his candidacy, his presidency, his family, his advisors, and Russia. As former Watergate criminal (turned state\u2019s best witness) John Dean<\/a> recently said on Chris Hayes\u2019 MSNBC program<\/a>, all that we have now with Trump is circumstantial evidence. But that evidence can be pretty strong. Dean reminded us that if we go to bed at night with no snow on the ground but wake up in the morning with a snow-covered lawn, we can conclusively determine that it snowed overnight.<\/p>\n