President Richard Nixon with Gov. George Wallace in February 1974

Although four U.S. presidents have faced articles of impeachment — Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — none of them were actually removed from office via a U.S. Senate trial. Johnson, Clinton and Trump were found "not guilty" in their Senate trials, and Nixon stepped down as president in August 1974 before a Senate trial had a chance to come about.

Americans who witnessed the Watergate scandal first hand — including Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks and journalists Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Dan Rather — have often been asked to compare Nixon and Trump. And all of them have said, without hesitation, that Trump is much worse. Woodward described Trump as "far worse than Richard Nixon."

In an article published on September 23, Salon's Heather Digby Parton stresses that Trump is crossing lines that Nixon wouldn't have dared to cross.

"Until very recently," Parton explains, "the consensus among historians and political observers was that Richard Nixon was the most corrupt president in American history. There had been other scandals, of course, but none of them featured the same crude, gangster quality of Watergate, the details of which shocked and appalled the American people as they were slowly uncovered between 1972 and 1974. We learned that the president of the United States acted like a common thug in private, issuing orders to his enforcers in language closer to that used by the mobsters featured in the recent hit movie 'The Godfather' than the dignified leader of the Free World."

But Parton argues that even though "the Nixon Administration's corruption and abuse of power was overwhelming," Nixon "was an amateur compared to Donald Trump."

"When the evidence in Watergate became undeniable," Parton explains, "Republicans in Congress abandoned Nixon. Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater famously led a delegation of congressional Republicans to the White House and told the president he would be impeached and removed from office. Nixon was forced to resign. But Trump has gone farther than Nixon ever contemplated."

Parton continues, "After his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, along with the infamous events of January 6, Trump was rewarded with a triumphant return to the White House four years later. Now, as his corruption and retribution have gone into overdrive, he maintains the full and enthusiastic support of his party.

Heather Digby Parton's full article for Salon is available at this link.