Trump’s Weaponization of the DOJ Was Made Possible by Roger Ailes and Fox News

“Watergate” became so synonymous with scandal and political corruption that the media took to simply adding “gate” to any fresh controversy. Yet the original has been referenced quite a lot lately, thanks to those drawing direct comparisons between Donald Trump’s use of the Justice Department and the lawlessness of Richard Nixon.

Despite Trump shattering presidential norms and two first-term impeachments, critics say last week’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey — which Trump publicly demanded on Truth Social — represents using the law to do the president’s bidding at a level Nixon could have only dreamed of.

For that, Trump owes a debt of gratitude to someone who worked for Nixon, the late Roger Ailes, who after serving as a White House advisor went on to create Trump’s most boisterous media shield, Fox News Channel.

Ailes saw Fox News as a way to level an unequal media playing field that was tilted against conservatives. In the Trump era, Fox has become a regular booster of his alternate version of reality, helping justify and explain his actions. It’s a symbiotic relationship that has facilitated Trump’s efforts, including his weaponization of the Justice Department to go after perceived enemies.

Before the election in October 2024, the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story with Carl Bernstein, warned that Trump is “far worse than Richard Nixon.” To many political observers, Trump is proving that point in his second term, as he has brazenly called upon the DOJ to prosecute his enemies in public, sailing past Nixon’s schemes that were conducted under the veil of secrecy.

Indeed, while Nixon kept an “enemies list” and wanted to wield the levers of government “to screw our political enemies,” as White House counsel John Dean wrote in a 1971 memo, he wound up resigning after efforts to halt the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in were exposed.

By contrast, Trump has not only openly abused the Justice Department’s independence but has engaged in other activities that have enriched him and his family, such as their crypto investments, which have legal scholars shaking their heads, sounding alarms that in any other time would sound like hyperbole.

Appearing on MSNBC last week, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman told host Ari Melber, “I never expected after Watergate to see another situation like that again, but we have it now on steroids.”

Watching Trump weather various scandals, debate has persisted over whether Nixon might have survived Watergate had Fox News existed, which Ailes envisioned long before Rupert Murdoch gave him the resources to launch it in 1996.

Ailes and other Nixon aides hatched the plan for a Nixon-friendly TV network that would push pro-administration propaganda in 1970, writing in a memo at the time, “People are lazy. With television you just sit — watch — listen. The thinking is done for you.”

Nixon liked the idea of disseminating what was described as “our own news,” but the plan didn’t come to fruition before Watergate triggered his downfall in 1974. More than two decades would pass before Fox News came into being the same year as MSNBC, expanding the cable news menu while funneling that space into ideological silos, leaving the category’s founder, CNN, stranded somewhere in the middle.

That polarization, which has come to include a chorus of Trump-defending voices on social media, has surely proved advantageous as the president seeks retribution against those he perceives as having crossed him — a strategy met with enthusiastic support from high-profile Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld.

Their arguments boil down to the claim Trump’s opponents pursued “lawfare” against him through a series of lawsuits, investigations and criminal indictments, thus justifying whatever Trump does in retaliation. Other pesky details, like the fact a New York jury found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a hush-money scheme, are simply dismissed due to geography (New York, after all) or bias.

Positioning the discussion that way allows supporters to defend anything Trump or his inner circle do, as podcaster (and Fox alum) Megyn Kelly illustrated when bribery allegations surfaced against Trump border czar Tom Homan, employing the imperial “we” to tweet, “We do not care.” (The Homan story has another Nixonian precedent, since Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in the face of similar charges.)

During Trump’s first term, Dean contended Fox insulated the president in a manner that might have saved Nixon, telling Politico in 2018, “There’s more likelihood he might have survived if there’d been a Fox News.”

Others echoed the point, including Geraldo Rivera, who said to Hannity on his radio show, “Nixon never would have been forced to resign if you existed in your current state back in 1972, ’73, ’74.”

In some respects, that line of thinking has less to do with Trump than Republican lawmakers, who broke with Nixon when evidence of his efforts to obstruct justice became public via the Watergate tapes. Today, Fox and other conservative media provide a protective bubble that not only wards off negative reporting but helps enforce party loyalty, with those who don’t toe the pro-Trump line risking being labeled “RINOs” (that is, Republican In Name Only).

Although many have drawn Trump-Nixon parallels before, the Comey indictment has revived the conversation. The challenge for media raising the issue is that details surrounding Nixon aren’t fresh in people’s minds a half-century later, despite the many dramatic (and comedic) depictions of him and Watergate, including productions like “Gaslit” and “White House Plumbers” in the last few years.

While Nixon’s name is inextricably linked to political corruption, it’s worth recalling how Trump mirrors or surpasses him, including animosity toward the press, paranoia about enemies and a sense of victimhood, all qualities that Fox News’ biggest names help reinforce.

In a Salon column, Heather Digby Parton called the Trump-Nixon connections “uncanny,” writing, “Trump has gone farther than Nixon ever contemplated,” adding that unlike Republican lawmakers who turned against Nixon, in Trump’s case, “As his corruption and retribution have gone into overdrive, he maintains the full and enthusiastic support of his party.”

To the extent Democrats and historians have wondered whether GOP legislators might experience pangs of conscience or grow spines, it’s worth noting the media incentive structure is much different today. Republican lawmakers seeking re-election know the value of Trump’s support as well as cable-news hits or appearances on friendly podcasts; they understand what they have to say.

Ailes died in 2017, but he has cast a long shadow. And while he didn’t realize his grand plan in time to save Nixon, as Trump takes unprecedented steps to check names off his enemies list, Ailes’ vision for Fox News continues to play a major co-starring role in letting Trump be as bad as Nixon wanted to be.

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