Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
Today's news can feel like uncharted
0:02
waters, but more often than you'd think,
0:04
we're not the first generation to confront
0:06
what we're dealing with today. We're just the
0:09
first generation to make a podcast about it. I'm
0:11
Rachel Maddow. I'm Isaac Davy Aronson. Each
0:13
week, we'll bring you a story from history.
0:15
That helps with something in the headlines
0:17
today. Rachel Maddow
0:20
presents Deja News with Isaac
0:22
Davy Aronson, an MSNBC
0:24
podcast. Search for Deja
0:26
News wherever you're listening and follow.
0:36
I say this to you. The
0:40
conduct of high individuals in the
0:42
Department of Justice, particularly
0:45
the conduct of the chief of the Criminal
0:47
Investigation Division of that department,
0:51
is unprofessional and
0:53
malicious and outrageous. It
0:56
is my intention to use the courts of this
0:58
country in an attempt
1:01
to gain permission to
1:04
examine under oath these
1:06
people who are trying to destroy
1:08
me politically through the abuse
1:11
of the criminal justice system of the United States.
1:17
Because of these
1:20
tactics which have been employed against
1:22
me, because small
1:26
and fearful men have been frightened
1:29
into furnishing evidence against
1:31
me, they have perjured
1:33
themselves. In many cases, it's my understanding.
1:38
I will not resign if indicted.
1:40
I will not resign if indicted.
1:42
Richard
1:46
Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew.
1:49
I will not resign if indicted.
1:52
When Spiro Agnew gave that defiant
1:55
speech in September 1973, the
1:58
Nixon administration was just under... incredible
2:00
pressure. The Watergate investigation
2:03
was in full swing. It was getting worse and
2:05
worse for
2:06
President Nixon by the day, and
2:08
everyone, particularly President Nixon,
2:11
knew it. The White House was basically
2:13
in chaos. The president himself, personally,
2:16
was kind of a mess. The
2:18
Justice Department was pretty sure at that
2:20
point that the presidency of Richard
2:22
Nixon was going to be cut short, that
2:26
one way or another, Nixon was not
2:28
likely to make it to the end of that term.
2:31
But when Vice President Spiro Agnew gave
2:34
that indignant speech, talking
2:36
about these people inside the Justice Department who
2:38
were trying to destroy him, saying
2:40
he would refuse to resign even
2:43
if he was indicted, he
2:45
was not talking about potential charges stemming
2:47
from the Watergate investigation. What
2:50
Agnew was talking about was his own thing,
2:52
his own troubles. He
2:54
was talking about this. Washington
2:56
was stunned today by the disclosure
2:59
that Vice President Agnew is under criminal
3:01
investigation by federal authorities
3:03
in his home state of Maryland. While
3:06
the Watergate investigation was front of
3:08
mind for the whole country,
3:10
three young federal prosecutors
3:13
out of Maryland working under the U.S. Attorney
3:15
in Maryland, they discovered
3:18
that there was something else criminal going on
3:20
in the Nixon administration. They discovered
3:22
that the Vice President Spiro Agnew
3:25
was running an active criminal
3:27
scheme of his own from
3:29
inside the White House. He was accepting
3:31
bribes, literal envelopes stuffed
3:33
full of cash
3:35
in exchange for official acts as
3:38
an elected official. That is
3:40
why Spiro Agnew was railing against the Justice
3:42
Department in that speech, because they
3:44
were daring to investigate him
3:47
for his illegal extortion
3:50
and kickback scheme, which he
3:52
absolutely, in fact,
3:53
was running from inside the White House.
3:57
Ultimately, the three young federal prosecutors
3:59
on that case, They turned up enough
4:01
evidence to bring dozens
4:04
of federal criminal charges against
4:06
Agnew. They wanted him
4:08
put on trial. They wanted a conviction. They
4:11
were sure they would get a conviction if they put him on
4:13
trial. And once they got a conviction,
4:15
they wanted Agnew to go to prison for
4:18
what he had done.
4:19
And that was their job, to be sure, right?
4:21
Nobody is above the law. But
4:23
charging someone while they are in
4:26
the White House, that was
4:28
a novel concept. It was a complicated
4:30
prospect. The constitutional
4:32
problems raised by the Agnew investigation
4:35
aren't bewildering. We've never had
4:37
a problem like this one before.
4:39
Spiro Agnew was refusing
4:41
to resign if he was indicted. And
4:45
with President Richard Nixon likely on his
4:47
way out because of Watergate, there was
4:49
a very, very good chance that Spiro Agnew
4:51
was about to become president. If
4:55
Agnew ascended to the presidency, what
4:58
would happen if there was a
5:00
pending indictment against him? What
5:02
would happen if he was on trial in that
5:04
moment? What would happen if he was convicted? Was he going
5:06
to try to be president from
5:09
prison?
5:10
Was he going to try to say, well, now that I'm president,
5:12
you cannot hold me in prison? The
5:14
Justice Department ultimately decided
5:17
that it would be best for the country not
5:19
to find out the answers to those
5:21
questions. Spiro T. Agnew
5:23
became a private citizen today, and
5:26
less than one hour after his resignation
5:28
as vice president became official, he
5:30
was convicted of a criminal charge of
5:32
tax evasion. Mr. Agnew and the Justice
5:34
Department had agreed on a bargain. Mr.
5:37
Agnew resigns as vice president and
5:39
pleads no contest to one count of income
5:42
tax evasion. The Justice Department
5:44
drops all other pending charges.
5:47
In the end, the Justice Department
5:49
struck a deal with Spiro Agnew. They
5:52
made public the evidence of the
5:54
dozens of crimes they believed that
5:57
he had committed. But then they let
5:59
him flee. no contest to just
6:01
a single charge of tax evasion.
6:05
All those felonies evaporated,
6:08
serious prospect of serious prison
6:10
time. Poof, gone. But
6:13
in exchange for that, what they made him
6:15
give up was big. It
6:17
was a condition of his plea deal that
6:20
he resign as vice president.
6:23
And that deal
6:25
is very much not what those three prosecutors
6:27
wanted, at least not initially.
6:29
They had worked so hard to investigate and expose
6:32
all of Agnew's crimes, they were ready
6:34
to go to trial. But
6:36
what the Attorney General, Elliot Richardson,
6:38
believed, and what the prosecutors
6:40
came to agree with, was
6:43
that the interests of justice would
6:45
best be served if they
6:47
did this deal. If they,
6:49
yes, told the world what they believed Agnew
6:52
had done, but then they
6:54
got him out of office and made that
6:56
the priority. Thus
6:57
preventing a national crisis and
7:00
the potential collapse of our constitutional
7:02
system of government. With a president trying
7:05
to run the country from prison and
7:08
a legal system trying to decide if
7:10
it could keep him there.
7:14
This whole episode has, of course,
7:17
been very much overshadowed in history
7:19
by Watergate, which happened very
7:22
near to this time. All of that drama
7:24
and what happened to President Nixon and his resignation
7:27
and his pardon. It's understandable
7:30
that Agnew has ended up a political
7:32
trivia question alongside all of that.
7:35
But a few years ago, we ended up with someone
7:37
else in the White House who looked like
7:39
he might conceivably face federal
7:41
criminal investigation. And suddenly
7:44
this sort of lost to history
7:46
precedent became really relevant, almost
7:48
urgently relevant.
7:51
So in 2018, with producer
7:53
Mike Yarvitz, I made a seven
7:56
part podcast about it and then we wrote
7:58
a book about it. And now,
8:01
the Agnew case is kind
8:03
of back again as we
8:05
enter into this newest chapter of crime
8:07
and high-level politics in American history.
8:10
Because now we've got someone
8:12
facing federal criminal charges who's,
8:15
yes, a former president, but
8:17
he's also a presidential candidate, a
8:20
leading presidential candidate. At this
8:22
point, he is the far and away front-runner
8:24
for the Republican Party's
8:25
presidential nomination. And
8:28
the Agnew case really is the
8:30
closest thing we've got to
8:33
a precedent of someone in that
8:35
position facing
8:36
federal criminal charges from the
8:38
U.S. Department of Justice.
8:41
Now, crucially, of course, the defendant
8:44
today is not a current official
8:46
like Agnew was. He's a former official. And
8:49
the Justice Department has decided to go ahead
8:52
and indict him and put him on trial. But
8:54
never got to that point with Agnew because they
8:56
let him
8:57
agree to that plea deal, where he
8:59
agreed to resign, in effect,
9:02
in order to make all his charges go away.
9:05
But the U.S. Justice Department is again facing
9:07
the same almost unthinkable prospect
9:10
of a criminal defendant, potentially
9:13
a jailed felon,
9:15
ascending to the presidency. We've never
9:17
had a problem like this one before. The
9:20
young federal prosecutors who faced the Agnew
9:22
crisis really were facing
9:24
something brand new when they contended with
9:26
this in 1973. But they
9:28
lived to tell the tale
9:30
as we now face something very much
9:32
like this again.
9:35
In the podcast Bagman, Mike Yarvitz
9:37
and I spoke to the three prosecutors
9:40
who investigated Spiro Agnew, who wrestled
9:42
with the ramifications for the Constitution and
9:44
the country of putting a potential president
9:46
behind bars. I have been
9:48
thinking about these three guys a lot lately,
9:51
wondering what they think about what's
9:53
happening in the news right now. And
9:56
if they have any advice for us as we grapple
9:58
with something... sort of like this
10:01
again. Those three young
10:03
men are named Tim Baker and
10:06
Ron Liebman and Barney Skolnick
10:07
and all three
10:10
of them join us now. Hi you guys, it's
10:12
good to see you. Hello. Hi Rachel.
10:15
Hi. We're also joined by an even younger guy,
10:18
Mike Yarvitz, my long time producer
10:20
and colleague, Mike and I made Bagman together
10:23
back in 2018. Hi Mike, good to see ya.
10:25
Hello Rachel, hello guys. Hi
10:27
Mike. Mike. Part of what happened
10:29
with Agnew, in terms of that plea bargain, was thinking
10:32
about what he had to trade away
10:34
and the biggest thing that he had to trade away was
10:36
his current office. There
10:39
was also the specter that he was
10:41
going to ascend to the presidency,
10:43
if Nixon fell for whatever reason. Did
10:47
you ever consider, as
10:50
part of those plea negotiations, was
10:53
it ever talked about that it would not just
10:55
be about
10:56
Agnew agreeing to resign, but
10:58
agreeing never to stand for office again? Or
11:01
were you able to just assume that if he was forced
11:04
out under these circumstances, that he'd
11:06
never even try to run again?
11:08
I don't think that ever came up
11:10
of his running, trying to run
11:12
again. And I think
11:15
if he, we just assume,
11:18
tacitly I guess, that if
11:20
he resigned as a part of some kind of plea
11:23
deal, no matter what the plea, if he resigned,
11:25
that would end his, basically
11:28
end his political career.
11:30
What we were concerned
11:32
about was we wanted jail time. And
11:37
we argued long and hard with Elliot Richardson
11:39
about that and he ultimately did persuade
11:42
us, but it took
11:44
a lot. It may be relevant to say
11:47
one of Richardson's arguments that
11:49
sort of fits in here, Barney
11:51
was arguing with Richardson.
11:53
Barney said,
11:56
just let us indict him. Just let us
11:58
indict him. He'll have to resign. resign.
12:01
And Richardson responded, Barney,
12:04
supposing he doesn't resign and supposing you
12:07
guys go to trial. Yes, you have an overwhelming
12:10
case, but supposing he takes to stand
12:12
and begins to testify in his own defense.
12:15
And while he is testifying, word
12:18
comes that Nixon has dropped
12:20
dead and he is now the President
12:22
of the United States.
12:25
Well, that took us back.
12:29
That was a real turning point. Can
12:31
I ask you though to keep going with
12:33
that thought experiment? He's indicted,
12:36
he's on trial, he's testifying
12:38
in his own defense. Word comes down,
12:40
burbles through the courtroom that Nixon
12:42
has died or resigned and now Agnew
12:45
is President. And
12:47
then what happens? Well,
12:49
I think the point of the argument
12:52
that persuaded me at
12:54
least, I think it was, oh my
12:56
God, we can't let that happen.
12:58
You got to get him out of there. We can't let it happen
13:00
that he,
13:02
even in the middle of a trial becomes President,
13:04
just can't.
13:05
So it's unthinkable. Barney,
13:08
if you had been
13:11
questioning the witness at that point or
13:13
Agnew is on the stand and
13:15
word came down, what
13:18
would you have done? What
13:21
a fun thing to think about. Yeah, we
13:27
were consumed
13:30
with the thought meeting
13:32
with the Attorney General in July
13:35
and August and September that
13:40
Nixon could drop dead tomorrow.
13:45
And then it's not just
13:47
that we don't have a case, we
13:49
don't have a job because
13:53
the next day if he's President, you
13:56
know how politicians always talk about what they'll
13:58
do on their first day in August.
13:59
office. We
14:02
knew what I would do on his first
14:04
day in office and it wasn't pretty.
14:07
And we were, you know, young,
14:10
bullheaded and
14:12
competent enough to be able to
14:15
calculate
14:17
whether or not we were comfortable
14:19
entertaining that possibility. And
14:21
the answer, of course, was no.
14:25
I mean, I remember very well that
14:28
that was a big part of my own
14:31
metamorphosis from he's
14:34
got to go to jail to how
14:37
soon can we get his ass in court and have
14:39
him resign. A big
14:41
part of that was Nixon.
14:43
In terms of the analogy and how it fits and how it doesn't,
14:48
you know, if the Trump trial does get pushed
14:50
till after the election, it's not Nixon
14:53
dying. It's Trump getting elected,
14:55
which then affects that same series
14:58
of events. Right. I mean, we know what he would do
15:00
on his day one in office if elected
15:03
to a second term. He'd make
15:05
the whole thing poof as well.
15:07
He'd probably abolish the Justice Department as we
15:09
know it.
15:11
Rachel, I'm 82 and conscious of
15:13
my own mortality and I do
15:15
not contemplate
15:19
Trump becoming president again. I mean,
15:23
I just don't think that's going to happen. And
15:26
and I don't want to think about the possibility
15:29
that
15:29
it might.
15:31
If you want to go down that path, you
15:34
go down it without me. You know, there's
15:36
a there's an interesting sort of
15:39
irony here.
15:40
Agnew's criminal
15:43
problems ended his political career,
15:45
and it's
15:47
quite possible that Trump's criminal
15:50
problems will enhance his political career.
15:52
Yeah.
15:53
But not to the point of his getting
15:55
elected again. When you
15:57
guys were considering the press.
15:59
of Agnew and
16:02
preparing potentially to put
16:04
him on trial. Did
16:07
you think about, did you talk about the
16:09
prospect that if
16:12
he was put on trial and he was acquitted, that
16:15
that might be sort of rocket fuel for
16:17
his
16:18
political future too? If
16:21
he was put on trial, he had no chance of
16:23
being acquitted. We had an overwhelming
16:26
case. No
16:29
chance, even with a
16:31
hostile judge. And
16:34
we also had a hell of a good team. We weren't just led
16:36
by Barney Skolnick, who may have been the best
16:38
prosecutor in the United States, but we also
16:40
had a fabulous team of IRS agents
16:43
led by Pete Stortewich, who's the best IRS
16:45
agent ever.
16:47
We interviewed Marty London for the podcast,
16:49
who was one of Speer Agnew's
16:51
defense attorneys at the time, who spoke
16:54
about the impracticalities of
16:56
trying and convicting a sitting
16:59
vice president and a man who might soon
17:01
become president, to
17:03
include, does he get secret service protection
17:06
in jail? And
17:08
if he's convicted
17:10
and sitting in jail, and
17:12
he suddenly becomes president, can he
17:15
pardon himself from a jail
17:17
cell?
17:19
Were those considerations top of mind
17:21
for you at all when it came to the
17:24
resolution of that case? And as
17:27
it relates to the current moment, how
17:30
do you assess those possibilities when
17:32
it comes to the former president,
17:34
who may soon be elected president
17:36
in the course of this? Well,
17:38
let me take a first crack at it. And
17:41
my answer is gonna be a little bit indirect,
17:43
because I'm
17:45
not worried about the situation.
17:48
I think the state of our
17:50
union remains strong.
17:52
And I think America will survive
17:55
the Trump era.
17:59
I have little doubt about it. about it. Yes,
18:01
there's a sizable number of people
18:04
with legitimate grievances
18:07
who
18:08
unfortunately find Trump appealing
18:12
and buy into all the nonsense
18:15
and the lies. But fundamentally,
18:19
in my opinion, this country, the
18:21
overwhelming majority are decent, law-abiding
18:25
people who tend to do
18:27
the right thing, and they tend to do the right thing when
18:29
they're on jury stories. Yes,
18:31
there could always be a hung jury, and it's a
18:33
risk in this case particularly, who lies
18:36
about jury service, who says
18:38
all the right things to be impaneled, but who really
18:41
secretly wants to acquit the defendant.
18:43
And a risk of a hung jury here,
18:45
I think, is a real risk.
18:49
The indictment is very
18:51
strong. I think the
18:53
case is very, very strong, and I think
18:55
it's quite likely if this case
18:57
goes to trial, he will be convicted. But
19:01
whether he is or whether he isn't, and with
19:03
all these moving parts, more indictments
19:05
to come, Trump's behavior,
19:08
yada-da-da-da-da-da, I'm
19:11
not worried. I think America will
19:13
survive this.
19:16
And I feel that in my
19:18
bones. And does he take the Secret Service
19:21
to prison? Well, you
19:23
know, they probably won't be allowed
19:25
to be in the cell with him, but
19:28
they can hang out outside and maybe,
19:30
you know, he can get some chewing gum
19:32
from them or whatever. But yeah, maybe.
19:37
We're talking with Tim Baker, Barney
19:39
Skolnick, Ron Liebman, the federal prosecutors
19:42
who brought charges against Vice President
19:44
Agnew in 1973. We'll
19:46
be back with more right after this.
19:55
Today's news can feel like uncharted
19:57
waters. But more often than you'd think,
19:59
we're
19:59
We're not the first generation to confront what
20:02
we're dealing with today. We're just the first
20:04
generation to make a podcast about it. I'm
20:06
Rachel Maddow. I'm Isaac Davie Aronson. Each
20:08
week we'll bring you a story from history.
20:10
That helps with something in the headlines
20:13
today. Rachel Maddow
20:15
presents Déjà News with Isaac
20:17
Davie Aronson, an MSNBC
20:19
podcast. Search for Déjà
20:21
News wherever you're listening and follow.
20:29
I'm Rachel Maddow. I'm here with producer
20:31
Mike Yarvitz and our guests are
20:34
Tim Baker, Barney Skolnick, and Ron
20:36
Liebman. They were the three young federal
20:38
prosecutors who spearheaded the
20:41
federal criminal investigation of
20:43
a man who was then the sitting vice president
20:45
of the United States, Spiro Agnew.
20:48
Just broadly speaking, what's been your reaction
20:51
to federal criminal charges being filed
20:53
against Trump, both
20:55
as a former president, but also as a presidential
20:57
candidate, as a sort of, I think at
20:59
this point, fair to say, a likely Republican
21:03
party presidential nominee.
21:06
When you found out that he was actually indicted,
21:08
that they were going ahead with
21:08
charges, how did you react or how have you
21:11
felt about it since then? Well, I certainly
21:13
wasn't surprised. I think we've
21:16
all been expecting multiple
21:20
indictments for a long time.
21:23
Like so many other people, we've been concerned
21:26
that it took so long
21:28
for the Department of Justice to get
21:31
off its ass. So
21:33
it was no surprise and
21:36
will continue to be known as both Georgia
21:39
and the January 6th investigation
21:41
lead to indictments. My
21:44
primary reaction is
21:47
and has been for months
21:49
to be anxious and worried about
21:51
our country because
21:54
he has the skill of
21:56
a fascist to
21:58
genuinely attract
22:01
people with grievances
22:05
and anger at their
22:07
lives, not being the way they want them to
22:09
be. That's what fascists
22:12
have done through history. The
22:15
phrase, I am your retribution, is
22:18
to me, terrifying
22:20
what's going on in this country with fully
22:23
a third of the people of this country, thinking
22:26
that he is not
22:28
just the
22:30
right guy to have been president, but
22:32
the right guy to be president again.
22:37
That to me is terrifying.
22:40
Even when he's gone,
22:42
a third of the country will probably
22:44
still
22:45
be looking for
22:47
somebody who can persuade
22:50
them that he is their retribution.
22:54
The thought that I will die
22:57
with our country in that
22:59
kind of shape
23:01
is
23:03
the phrase, what keeps you up at night,
23:06
that's what keeps me up at night. Given
23:10
the kind of power that you're describing
23:13
him having and
23:16
the way his power works, the kind of grip
23:18
on people that you're describing, do
23:21
you think that having federal
23:23
charges pending against him is
23:25
a risk to the legal
23:27
system, a risk to the constitutional order,
23:30
or do you think it the opposite? Well, there is
23:32
certainly a risk, but I don't
23:34
see that the country has any viable
23:36
alternative.
23:38
Tim, what was your reaction, or
23:40
what's been your reaction over time as we've seen
23:43
these indictments of Trump? No
23:46
Department of Justice worthy of its name
23:49
could have failed to bring these charges. Those
23:52
charges had to be brought, and yet they
23:54
scare the hell out of me. I
23:57
am terrified that he somehow
23:59
could... be acquitted in the Southern
24:02
District of Florida. I'm
24:04
very suspicious of that
24:07
judge who was so tilted in
24:09
Trump's favor back when the issues
24:12
around the grand jury subpoena were being litigated
24:14
and who was the 11th circuit
24:17
just trumped on her. But
24:20
trying a case in front of a judge who's
24:22
against you,
24:24
those of us who had the pleasure, it
24:27
is hell. And the judges
24:29
against you in lots of ways that are not reversible
24:33
error can ruin your
24:35
case. And if Trump is
24:37
acquitted,
24:39
I think that'll probably elect him president
24:42
again. And for all
24:44
the reasons Barney talked about, that is a terrifying
24:46
prospect
24:48
for our country, for
24:50
my children and my grandchildren. So
24:55
I think the overwhelming
24:56
thing that comes to mind, the overwhelming
24:59
issue is the effect of this
25:01
and other cases on the 2024 presidential
25:04
election. I have no idea
25:06
what the effect is going to be. This
25:08
hasn't played out, but
25:10
it could play out very, very badly.
25:13
If Trump is
25:16
in the classified documents case facing
25:19
a legal situation in
25:21
which things don't look good for him,
25:24
the judge is letting the
25:26
case proceed in a way that is fair
25:28
and sort of straight down the middle and the evidence
25:31
is holding up and looks as strong in the courtroom
25:33
as it does in the indictment. If it's all
25:35
looking bad for Trump and
25:38
he
25:38
conceivably is facing both conviction
25:41
and a prison sentence, should
25:44
the Justice Department offer him a
25:47
plea deal that
25:49
includes trading away the threat
25:52
of jail time for him
25:55
agreeing to never stand for public office again? Ron
25:57
should answer that as brilliantly as he answered in
25:59
a your program the other night. And
26:01
then I'll ask you both to agree with them. The
26:05
answer is no. I
26:08
mean, even if it's
26:10
Trump,
26:11
rather than the Justice Department that
26:13
comes up with the notion
26:16
that foregoing
26:18
a political career should be part of a plea
26:20
deal. And even if it's
26:22
documented and put in writing
26:25
in black and white,
26:26
Trump will tell his
26:29
people you know,
26:31
you see what they did to me? It was their
26:34
idea. They wanted me not to
26:36
run for office. Well, I had
26:38
to take the deal because I had to
26:40
be here available to do
26:42
your bidding. And I'm here even though I'm
26:44
no longer in public office. I'm
26:47
here and I'm your guy. So my
26:49
answer is and has been emphatically
26:52
no.
26:53
Why didn't Agnew try that against you guys?
26:57
Agnew was a crook
27:01
and a bad guy. But
27:03
comparing his behavior
27:07
and his mindset to Trump is
27:09
like comparing, I don't
27:12
know, an astronaut to a six year old child.
27:14
It just doesn't compute. And there's I totally
27:16
agree with Ron's simple conclusion
27:19
that the answer is no. There should be
27:21
no such deal. What Trump
27:23
has going for him
27:25
with regard to any deal is
27:28
that he is a Republican being
27:32
prosecuted under a Democratic
27:34
administration and all
27:36
the all the, you know, weaponization
27:41
and other similar crap that
27:44
he and his apologists can
27:46
make out of that. Agnew
27:48
didn't have that because
27:50
Agnew had a Republican
27:53
admitted he was a Republican being prosecuted
27:55
by a Republican president
27:57
or Republican Department of Justice.
28:00
and a Republican attorney
28:03
general.
28:04
So, you know, that line about, you know,
28:07
politicalization
28:10
and weaponization and so on, that
28:12
just wasn't available tag new and therefore
28:14
was never a consideration. Whereas
28:17
for the reasons Ron has articulated, it's
28:19
not just a consideration, it's
28:22
a very powerful, again, for the third
28:24
of the country that buys this stuff,
28:27
it's a very powerful argument, regardless
28:30
of what the deal says and
28:32
whether it's in writing and whether it has a seal
28:34
on it, you know, he
28:37
will say he
28:37
was forced to do it by
28:40
the bad guys and he's back
28:42
to be your retribution. So I
28:44
totally agree with Ron.
28:47
It would only confirm the belief
28:51
that this prosecution was
28:53
brought politically by a democratic administration
28:56
to knock Trump
28:59
out as Biden's opponent in 2024.
29:03
Agnew did try.
29:05
He had a Republican administration
29:08
or Republican attorney general or Republican
29:10
US attorney, but the three of us were
29:13
all Democrats and he did try and go after
29:15
us. He went after Barney because he'd worked for
29:17
Muskie in the
29:19
primaries
29:21
and he went after me because shield
29:23
your children from this because he thought
29:25
I was a real pinko because I'd been a Peace
29:28
Corps volunteer.
29:29
Ah, no, we have to
29:31
end this right now. I
29:34
remember us being in the
29:36
car with George Bell going
29:39
to Washington when he said to us, you
29:41
know, guys, I never asked you, are you registered
29:44
Republicans or Democrats? Did you tell
29:46
him? And what did you say? Yeah, yeah,
29:48
we told him. He didn't care.
29:53
We have much more to get to in this special episode
29:56
of Bagman. Stay with us.
30:13
Welcome back to our special bonus
30:16
episode of the Bagman Podcast.
30:18
I'm Rachel Maddow. I'm here with producer
30:20
Mike Yarvitz and our guests, former
30:22
federal prosecutors Tim Baker, Barney
30:25
Skolnick, and Ron Liebman. The
30:27
three young federal
30:28
prosecutors who prepared federal
30:31
criminal charges against then
30:33
Vice President Spiro Agnew. So
30:36
we're going to be posting this on
30:38
July 3rd, which
30:41
I believe is the 50-year anniversary
30:43
to
30:46
the day of a scene
30:48
that we described in Bagman, which has stuck with me
30:50
ever since, which was you guys
30:53
crammed into George Bell's
30:56
Audi 100, driving
30:59
from Baltimore
31:00
to Washington, D.C. to
31:03
go meet with Attorney General Elliot Richardson
31:05
for the first time to brief
31:07
him in person on what was going on
31:10
with the Agnew investigation. And
31:12
there was a lot of drama out of the way. We told that in the podcast
31:14
because I think you guys got pulled over. Like
31:17
there was, I mean, there was at least anxiety
31:19
on your part in terms of what the Attorney General was going to
31:21
think. I was wondering,
31:23
on 50 years since that day, if you
31:25
guys could tell us at all what that was
31:28
like when you were going to bring your
31:31
investigation and what you knew to the top of
31:33
the Justice Department, essentially for them to decide
31:35
what they were going to do with it. Well,
31:37
first of all, we were told not to come.
31:40
The Attorney General's secretary called us that
31:42
morning. I think this is the third or fourth time
31:44
that our proposed meeting with Attorney
31:46
General Richardson had been canceled.
31:49
And we were, it was canceled once again. And
31:52
we all decided we got in George's car and
31:54
we came, we went over to Washington and sat
31:57
in his waiting room anyway, even though we were
31:59
told not to be there.
32:01
And Tim, I believe it was you who, you
32:03
know, after you did finally get into
32:06
the attorney general's conference room and he, you
32:08
know, had to step out for various
32:11
calls, ultimately, it
32:13
was you who George Bell turned
32:15
to, I think, to explain
32:18
what exactly you were there for. Is that right? Yes.
32:21
In a lot of ways, our principal concern was that the
32:23
Department of Justice would take our
32:25
case away from us. And
32:28
so the first order of business was
32:30
for George to
32:31
establish our credibility, that we, in fact,
32:33
knew what we were doing. We had credentials,
32:36
we had experience. So George
32:38
started out with that and then Richardson
32:40
would immediately get a note from his secretary,
32:43
get up and leave, and was gone for what, guys, 20
32:46
minutes at one point? And we just
32:48
thought he'd never come back and we never even got
32:50
to even mention the word Agnew.
32:54
So then Barney and Ron remember
32:56
that he finally came back
32:59
and we had said to George, get the Agnew.
33:02
So that's what George blurted out. And we immediately
33:05
had Attorney General Richardson's total
33:07
attention.
33:08
How old were all of you at the time? I
33:10
was the baby. I was 29. I
33:13
was 32, the oldest.
33:14
And I was 31. 32, the
33:16
oldest. Ron,
33:20
can you talk about the months that
33:22
preceded you guys walking into the
33:24
Justice Department?
33:26
You at 29 years old
33:29
were
33:31
involved in some pretty heavy stuff
33:33
for the country and the fate of the presidency.
33:37
What was it like as a 29 year old investigating
33:40
the vice president? Well,
33:41
one of the wonderful aspects of youth
33:44
is you don't really realize
33:46
when you're young that there's something else beside
33:49
it. So I
33:51
really didn't think about that. We were three
33:54
assistant US attorneys with a
33:56
case that grew from
33:58
looking into bribery
34:00
for zoning, for land
34:03
in Maryland, to the Vice President
34:05
of the United States. And we,
34:08
none of us, I think, really thought about
34:11
our age at all. It
34:13
was a job we had to do. We did it.
34:15
And our concern was that,
34:18
having built this case, that
34:21
the Justice Department would
34:23
not let three Baltimore federal prosecutors
34:26
run with it.
34:27
That was what was in our heads. I
34:30
know from talking to you guys
34:32
and from the interviews that we did for Bagman
34:34
that you guys all hold George Bell, your former
34:36
boss, the U.S. attorney,
34:38
in really high esteem in
34:40
general and in terms of how he supervised
34:43
your work and the way that he
34:46
sort of served as a little bit of a heat shield
34:48
for you guys during the Agnew investigation. Obviously,
34:51
George Bell is no longer with us, but this
34:54
is a little bit unfair.
34:54
I wonder what you think that he would
34:57
think of today's Republican Party and the Trump
34:59
phenomenon. You
35:01
know, George Bell was sort of Republican royalty from Maryland.
35:04
I think he would be appalled, absolutely
35:07
appalled. Yeah, as many Republicans
35:10
are. George Bell
35:12
and Eliot Richardson were
35:14
both in
35:16
and or intending to
35:18
be active in Republican
35:22
politics. I have always
35:24
thought that the heroes of the case
35:27
are those two guys who had a great
35:30
deal at stake and they
35:32
and they took the right path, which
35:35
which was at least potentially, and
35:37
I think probably in fact, especially
35:40
as to George, a
35:43
you know, a sacrifice, because
35:46
he was never heard in elective politics
35:50
for the rest of his life, which, you
35:53
know, went on for almost 50 years. He
35:55
died just a few years ago.
35:57
Barney, I don't think George ever wanted to go
35:59
into elective. but he certainly
36:01
looked forward to a career of
36:04
Republican appointments to higher and higher
36:06
offices. And he knew perfectly well
36:09
that his chances of that happening
36:12
would come to an end because of Agnew. And
36:14
that's exactly what did happen to Eliot Richardson.
36:17
He never again held
36:18
a high kind of political
36:21
office in Republican administrations. He
36:23
got the throwaway jobs, and that
36:25
was all because of Agnew, the part
36:27
of the Republican Party that never forgave
36:29
him.
36:30
And he knew it, and George knew it, and they didn't
36:32
blink. Think how fortunate
36:35
Barney, Timmy, and I were to
36:37
report to both George Bell and
36:40
Eliot Richardson.
36:42
Absolutely. I wonder what
36:44
will happen to those Republicans who are
36:46
speaking up against Trump now,
36:49
Romney.
36:50
William Barr, Trump's
36:53
attorney general, has ridiculed
36:56
Trump's post defense to these
36:58
documents charges. And Chris Christie
37:00
is all over him
37:02
about all kinds of things. And
37:04
let's see who joins
37:07
them on this. Well, a lot more Republicans
37:09
need to do it.
37:11
You guys were describing how
37:13
Eliot Richardson and George Bell, your bosses,
37:16
took a much bigger risk than you did as individuals.
37:20
But you did get singled
37:22
out and attacked by the vice president,
37:25
and he sort of tried
37:27
to train the ire
37:30
of his supporters against
37:32
you guys for being Democrats, for somehow being
37:35
biased and trying to take him out. Was
37:37
that a cause of stress for you in the moment? And
37:39
you reflected all in terms of the prosecutors,
37:41
people like Jack Smith, who are getting
37:42
so much criticism from defendant Trump right
37:44
now. Do you have any advice for them? Well, Ron put
37:47
it well a couple of weeks ago when he said
37:49
you put your head down and you ignore the noise.
37:52
I think that's exactly right. And I'm
37:55
sure that's exactly what Jack
37:57
Smith is doing.
37:59
The
38:01
threat of violence is
38:04
the thing that
38:06
you can't not be aware of, but
38:08
the prosecutors are not
38:10
in the position to do anything directly about
38:12
that. They have to rely on the
38:15
security organizations
38:17
and so on. But I
38:20
seriously doubt that Jack
38:22
Smith or any of the other prosecutors are worried
38:26
about being personally attacked verbally.
38:30
Jack Smith from what I've seen on TV
38:33
has real armed security
38:35
with him because
38:37
the times are different and he needs
38:40
it. In 1973,
38:43
we didn't. We
38:47
just didn't. You didn't have a secret
38:49
service guard on you all run. I
38:52
mean, Mr. Forgotten that. You
38:55
guys had it and I did. Now you tell
38:57
me. We thought nobody's going to attack
38:59
you. That's right. They
39:02
only had two agents, I can spare.
39:06
Now you tell
39:08
me, Jesus. It's like running
39:10
from a bear. You don't have to be faster than the bear.
39:13
You just have to be faster than Ron. That's
39:17
right. Rachel, one of
39:19
the things we've talked about a little bit in the years
39:22
since, but never even thought about at
39:24
the time, which supposing
39:26
the Saturday night massacre in
39:29
which Eliot Richardson lost his job, supposing
39:31
that had occurred 10 days before
39:34
the plea deal was struck rather
39:36
than 10 days afterwards. So suddenly
39:39
our
39:40
protector and our hero is gone.
39:44
And supposing Nixon puts in a new
39:47
John Mitchell who says to
39:49
us very politely, well, of course, he has to review
39:52
the case and then just send
39:54
everything over and I'll look at it and days go
39:56
by, weeks go by, months
39:59
go by.
39:59
and every time we inquire, we're kind
40:02
of put off. Supposing we
40:04
decided to go ahead and bring an indictment
40:06
anyway. Of course, that
40:08
would have been an unauthorized indictment, but
40:10
we would have said that they're covering it
40:13
up over there and we're not gonna
40:15
let that happen. The grand jury agrees. So
40:17
here's an
40:19
unauthorized indictment. Do your worst.
40:22
And that would have been our last official
40:24
act. You bet, we'd have been fired that
40:26
day and probably disbarred. To
40:29
me, I love when you talk dirty. Yes.
40:33
Well, that would have been exciting. Very exciting.
40:36
That's one way to put it, yep, yep.
40:38
What would a judge do with an unauthorized
40:40
indictment? I'm just trying to imagine being the
40:42
judge in that circumstance, saying, this is just for you three
40:45
guys as citizens? It's a citizen's
40:46
indictment. No, no, the grand jury. Grand jury would
40:49
have returned it, but it wouldn't have been signed as
40:52
federal indictments have to be, wouldn't have been signed
40:54
by an authorized representative of
40:56
the Department of Justice. The purpose of it would
40:58
have been like a gigantic press release.
41:02
And the press conference would have said, this
41:04
is the Nixon administration doing it all
41:06
over again. They're covering it up. Imagine
41:09
the firestorm.
41:10
And then we would have gone home to our spouses
41:13
and said, I've got good news and
41:15
I've got bad news. That's crazy.
41:20
Would George Bell have signed that indictment?
41:22
Would he have been considered an authorized representative
41:25
of the Justice Department? No, he was not
41:27
authorized. And I don't think we would have included
41:30
him just out of respect, not asking
41:32
him to go along.
41:33
He would have been as surprised as everybody else and
41:36
probably just as mad. But what
41:38
else could we have done? I feel
41:40
a little bit like this time in history is
41:43
this moment that's training us to push
41:46
ourselves further and further into the what
41:49
if territory, because all the things
41:52
that were previously unthinkable just keep
41:54
happening. All the things that
41:56
seemed like, oh, that would pose a constitutional
41:58
crisis. And then who knows what would happen. We're
42:00
now in the who knows what would happen bit of
42:03
territory. It
42:05
seems like over and over again, a lot during the Trump
42:07
presidency, but a lot right now with
42:10
these prosecutions and with this 2024 campaign,
42:12
I guess as just kind of a
42:15
closing discussion
42:17
here. I think a lot of Americans
42:20
right now can see
42:22
that we are in what if territory, see that we
42:24
are in what feels like unprecedented territory
42:27
or at least potential crisis territory. And
42:29
it can't feel scary. It
42:32
can feel worrying or confusing.
42:34
It can make you want to withdraw and not pay attention
42:37
because it feels overwhelming. If you think
42:38
there's a prospect for a
42:40
civil war or some other terrible eventuality
42:43
that you never thought you'd have to face in your life and that now seems
42:45
possible,
42:48
it can be upsetting or innovating.
42:52
And I wonder if you have anything to say, having been through a
42:54
crisis of your own that you guys were intimately
42:56
involved in and part of the decision makers about, I just
42:59
wonder if you have any thoughts for people, anything you'd share
43:00
with them about those kind of being
43:03
involved in a big thing for your country where you really don't
43:05
know how it's going to end. Well,
43:08
we sort of addressed this earlier
43:11
in this discussion. On
43:14
the one hand, this could
43:17
destroy our country and our democracy.
43:22
The rabble, the crowds could overtake
43:25
the government. On the other
43:27
hand, as I indicated,
43:29
I believe, I think this is
43:32
another crisis. It's a major crisis.
43:34
A lot of moving parts, a lot of
43:36
things unanticipated
43:38
are
43:39
going to happen.
43:41
But I
43:43
think and I believe that the country
43:45
gets through this. Trump will be
43:48
remembered in history unkindly
43:50
as he should. And
43:53
then we'll be on to the next crisis.
43:56
Jimmy Barney, what do you guys think? I don't disagree
43:58
with the proposition that we'll. get through
44:00
this as a country. But
44:05
I do
44:06
really worry about
44:09
what
44:11
happens to the country after Trump
44:14
is gone, but
44:16
there are still
44:18
something like a third of the
44:21
country looking
44:23
for the next fellow who
44:26
says, give me power
44:28
and I will fix your problems. I
44:32
mean, to the extent that that's a siren song
44:34
that works and
44:37
has worked throughout history, it
44:40
doesn't stop
44:43
singing to some people just because
44:45
Trump personally is gone. And
44:49
that continues for me
44:51
to be a
44:52
real concern. I am not
44:55
as sanguine as you all are that
44:57
Trump cannot
44:59
and will not win the 2024 election and
45:02
become president again. I
45:04
think he's got a shot at it.
45:07
I don't underestimate it at all and
45:09
the consequences of that will be a disaster
45:12
for our country.
45:14
I really worry about it. Tim,
45:17
here's the part where you say, but here's
45:19
the reason why you shouldn't despair. Yeah,
45:22
over to you, Tim. If he becomes
45:24
president again, I despair. Oh,
45:27
great. It's not like the Agnew case
45:31
established some kind of standing DOJ
45:33
policy that a sitting president can't be indicted.
45:36
Well, the question is, what if a
45:39
man is elected president who has been
45:41
indicted and who has been convicted? Nobody
45:43
knows the answer to that.
45:45
I know that you guys think that George Bell
45:47
and Elliot Richardson were
45:49
the real heroes, but you guys did both very
45:52
good work and had
45:54
some heroics of your own. I also
45:57
feel like the Agnew story is understandably
46:00
overshadowed by what happened in Watergate, but I think
46:03
it's an important part of how we should think about the Justice
46:06
Department contending with the rule of law versus
46:08
political power. We are
46:10
very lucky as a country that you guys
46:13
at the nucleus of that story comported yourself
46:16
with such skill and such dignity.
46:18
Because if you were jerks or
46:21
if you'd made a bunch of mistakes, it would be harder
46:23
to tell that story. But because
46:25
you did it right. And again,
46:27
you comported yourself with such professionalism
46:29
and dignity in
46:31
a way that really stands up to history.
46:34
We get to tell that history in a way that is unapologetic
46:37
and I think still really illuminating and it keeps
46:39
coming up as newly relevant. So
46:42
I'm just happy that you guys are willing to talk to me and Mike.
46:46
Tim Baker, Ron Liebman, Barney
46:48
Skolnick. It
46:51
is an honor to talk
46:53
to you guys. All right, fellas.
46:56
Thank you.
47:01
So that's going to do it for us on this special
47:03
bonus episode of Bag Man. Bag
47:05
Man is a production of MSNBC
47:07
and NBC
47:07
News. It's executive produced by
47:10
myself and Mike Yarvitz. This episode
47:12
was written and produced by Kelsey Desiderio.
47:14
Our associate producer is Jumares Perez. Sound
47:17
design by Cedric Wilson. Our technical
47:19
director is Bryson Barnes. Our senior
47:21
executive producers are Corey Nazo and Laura
47:24
Conaway. Our web producer is Will
47:26
Femia. And you can read more about
47:28
the investigation into Spiro Agnew. You
47:30
can listen to all seven episodes of Bag
47:32
Man at our website, msnbc.com
47:34
slash bagman.
47:55
I'm just sick about it. I think he's
47:57
a man of his word and I think they've all been doing
47:59
it. the same thing for
48:01
ever since I started voting and I think it's
48:04
just too bad. I think he's a great man.
48:06
I thought he was one of the greatest men that this country
48:08
has ever had.
48:09
What is your reaction to the resignation? I
48:12
think it's a sad thing. I think it was very
48:14
unnecessary. I'm just sick. I'm
48:17
very unhappy. I don't think it was necessary. I
48:19
think it's a lot of political hogwash and
48:22
I'm... Oh!
48:30
Today's news can feel like uncharted
48:32
waters. But more often than
48:34
you think, we're not the first generation to
48:36
confront what we're dealing with today. We're
48:38
just the first generation to make a podcast about
48:40
it. I'm Rachel Maddow. I'm Isaac Davy
48:42
Aronson. Each week we'll bring you a story from
48:45
history.
48:45
That helps with something in the headlines
48:47
today. Rachel Maddow
48:50
presents Déjà News with Isaac
48:52
Davy Aronson, an MSNBC
48:54
podcast. Search for Déjà
48:56
News wherever you're listening and follow.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More