Trump DOJ on a new mission to clear Nixon’s name

U.S. President Donald Trump watches a match during the UFC 327 event at Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, U.S., April 11, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

According to a new exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal published on Thursday, the Department of Justice is seeking to relitigate the legacy of disgraced former President Richard Nixon. “For nearly two years, the Justice Department has made it a priority to investigate people who previously investigated President Trump,” writes the Journal. Now, “the department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation.”

According to the Journal, Geoff Shepard – a former Nixon aide turned Watergate historian and revisionist – recently delivered a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down. The title of his 78-page slide deck was “Watergate As Lawfare," and the language used by Shepard is notably similar to that wielded by Trump when complaining about investigations against him, as he has long asserted that “deep state” actors have waged “lawfare” against him on behalf of his opponents.

“The review comes at a moment of renewed interest in the Nixon legacy,” writes the Journal. “Republicans see in the combative former president, who was loathed by the press and besieged by investigations, a historical analogue for Trump. During remarks at the Nixon Presidential Library this summer, Vice President JD Vance made the comparison explicit.” In Vance’s estimation, “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people — the same institutions — tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.”

The Journal reports that a senior Justice Department official invited Shepard to come to Justice Department headquarters and make his case before the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal watchdog that investigates allegations of misconduct. Ironically, notes the Journal, “the office itself is a product of the Watergate era, one of a number of changes aimed at shielding criminal investigations from White House influence.” Shepard has previously requested an investigation into his theories during the Biden Administration, but was denied.

“Shepard has served as a sort of godfather for the Watergate revisionists,” writes the Journal. “Mainstream scholars have long concluded that Watergate generated a genuine constitutional crisis and that Nixon, not those who investigated him, was guilty of a malfeasance which not only doomed his presidency but also led to overhauls that significantly curtailed executive power. Nixon’s tenure has been of growing interest to Trump, Vance and the larger conservative movement. Trump has asked former Nixon aides on several occasions why Nixon resigned rather than fight it out. The current president also has moved to roll back many post-Watergate overhauls, challenging limits on presidential authority to fire inspectors general and career civil servants.”

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