During a segment on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” in August, activist Christopher Rufo astonished the studio audience when he said the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon “was a setup from start to finish.”

The crowd hooted. Maher retorted that there were plenty of “smoking guns” showing the late president’s guilt. But Rufo insisted that there were federal agencies that had had illegal backdoor meetings and that there was a judge who was “out to get Nixon.”

Maher muttered, “Oh, geez,” to which Rufo replied with a grin and a prediction: “Nixon vindication by 2035.”

The Watergate scandal has long been viewed as a defining moment in presidential corruption and accountability, prompting a series of government transparency reforms and influencing generations of journ

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