patrick.net

Last Thursday, Tucker Carlson released a fascinating interview with Geoff Shepard, a retired lawyer who, back in the day, helped defend President Richard Nixon’s impeachment trial. Among the many little-known facts revealed in the interview, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the sticky fingerprints of the U.S. security state were all over Watergate. All but one of the Watergate burglars had CIA connections. And celebrity investigative reporter Bob Woodward, who “broke” the story, had just started at the WaPo — coming from Naval Intelligence, with zero journalism experience. He couldn’t write a limerick. That’s why he needed Bernstein.

https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1821593377164419377

Over the two-hour interview, Shepard explained that both Nixon and Trump were politically undermined in the exact same way. But he also described a profound and encouraging distinction between the two cases: things are different nowadays.

Mr. Shepard noted that, back when Nixon was desperately trying to defend himself, there were no publicly recognized terms like “deep state,” “fake news,” “false narrative,” or “lawfare.” There was no Twitter and no Tucker Carlson. There were only three alphabet networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) and two liberal newspapers (the Washington Post and the New York Times).

Nixon, in other words, never had a chance.

In short, the sadistic seeds of political color revolution in America were planted when the deep state rooted out President Nixon and made his name into an adjectival epithet and a byword. (Think psyop.) All the tools we see used now against Trump, Shepard claimed, including stolen elections, were developed to overthrow anti-communist Nixon, who at the time —prepare to be shocked— was working on reducing the CIA’s powers.

The episode has 3.9 million views, but it seems like that number should be much larger. It’s on the longer side, but if you have time, you won’t regret the listen.