The indictment of former president Donald Trump has taken the country into uncharted territory. Yet the case bears considerable resemblance to the successful prosecution of Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973.
Fifty years ago this spring, a team of young lawyers in the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore amassed evidence that Agnew took bribes in exchange for companies winning state engineering contracts in Maryland. Then, as now, observers recognized that the United States was entering an era of holding its most powerful political leaders accountable for legal wrongdoing. As The Washington Post Editorial Board wrote at the time, the test would be whether the Justice Department and the courts could “proceed as they would proceed with any other public official — rigorously, impartially and promptly.”
The system passed that test, and on Oct. 10, 1973, Agnew resigned and entered a nolo contendere plea that ensured he would avoid jail time.
It’s not surprising that Agnew’s political fall anticipates Trump’s legal problems. After all, one can trace the popularity of Trump’s combative political temperament and slashing populism back to Agnew’s long-forgotten career.
While their two cases are similar, one crucial difference exposes how much Republican politics and media have changed over the past half-century.
Agnew burst onto the national political scene in 1968 buoyed by the “backlash” vote against the civil rights, anti-Vietnam War and counterculture movements. The Maryland governor caught the eye of Pat Buchanan, an aide to Republican presidential front-runner Richard M. Nixon, in the aftermath of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Riots broke out across America, and while the leaders of Baltimore’s Black community had tried to contain the violence, Agnew castigated them for not denouncing it in terms he found sufficiently emphatic.
Later that summer, Nixon chose Agnew — despite the governor having no national name recognition — to be his running mate. As vice president, Agnew launched a populist assault that has become all too familiar now, blazing a trail of speeches in 1969 and 1970 that went a long way toward altering the nation’s political landscape.
Taking on what decades later would become the holy trinity of targets for Trump’s MAGA movement — the media, coastal elites and higher education — Agnew went from punchline to patron saint of middle America.
Inspired by his apocalyptic, conspiratorial rhetoric, a new class of Republican populists followed his lead in alleging that higher education was a radical plot to poison the minds of their children and that mysterious government bureaucrats were using their power to make common cause with communism. In addition, long before the term “fake news” existed, Agnew made it an article of faith among Republicans that the media was a liberal echo chamber hostile to conservatives.
His framing of the perceived threats to the nation struck a thunderous chord with White Americans across class and geographic lines, and by 1972 Agnew had become that rarity among vice presidents: a household name. Rolling triumphantly into his second term, polls showed Agnew as an early front-runner for the 1976 Republican nomination.
And then his past caught up with him.
Federal officials informed Agnew’s office in February 1973 that an investigation into Maryland state politics now included his time as Baltimore County executive (1962-66) and as governor (1967-69). By August, the corruption probe’s scrutiny of Agnew burst into the news.
Investigators had hard evidence that he had received bribes in exchange for favorable treatment in the awarding of state and local government contracts. Amazingly, Agnew was still receiving envelopes of cash from Maryland business executives in the vice president’s suite in the Old Executive Office Building. Agnew appealed to Nixon and congressional Republican leaders for help, to little avail. Nixon had his own problems, namely Watergate, and wasn’t going to war to save his vice president.
Instead, the GOP establishment quickly distanced itself from Agnew. The investigation had the full support of Attorney General Elliot Richardson. Its lead investigator, U.S. Attorney George Beall, was from a well-known Republican family and his brother, Glenn Beall Jr., served in the U.S. Senate.
The lack of support left Agnew boxed in as key witnesses made their own deals with prosecutors and testified against him. From there, the walls closed in quickly — even as Agnew furiously and publicly fought back.
Just days before he accepted the plea deal, Agnew rallied his defenders at a meeting of the National Federation of Republican Women in Los Angeles. He accused the press and the investigators of working together to turn his case into a “kangaroo trial in the media.” Playing victim, Agnew lamented how he was forced to endure the “undefined, unclear and unattributed accusations” leaked by Justice Department hacks whose behavior had been “unprofessional, malicious and outrageous.” It was, he added, clear that “they are trying to destroy me politically through abuse of the criminal justice system.” The audience roared its support as the women waved their scarves and signs and “stood on tables to cheer.”
Less than two weeks after his rousing Los Angeles appearance, Agnew resigned and accepted the plea deal under which he’d plead nolo contendere to one count of tax evasion and accept a $10,000 fine and three years of probation in return for no further prosecution. The prosecution then released a 40-page summary of the abundant evidence against him that included “a pattern of substantial cash payments to the defendant” throughout his political career. The attorney general noted that the government could have pressed forward with an indictment on bribery and extortion charges, but that it would have “likely inflict[ed] upon the Nation serious and permanent scars.”
Despite the overwhelming evidence, Agnew kept up his defense. He went on national television less than a week later to explain how the nolo contendere plea, usually considered to be “the equivalent of a plea of guilty,” in his case was actually something else. He only conceded, he said, to “quell the raging storm” that the media and investigators had whipped up against him.
His supporters believed him. Ruth Egan of Gulfport, Fla., was just one of the thousands who wrote letters of undying loyalty to Agnew during this time: “America loves you, Mr. Agnew. Just wanted to let you know the radical media has not humbugged all of us by means of their rotten crusade to return the Democrats to power.”
The parallels between Agnew’s fall and Trump’s case are almost eerie. Once again, key witnesses turned on the powerful, populist leader, in Trump’s case his former attorney Michael Cohen, and perhaps Allen Weisselberg, former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.
Trump, like Agnew, has assailed prosecutors and mounted a vigorous public defense. In a bizarre, revival-style event in Waco, Tex., on March 24, the former president referred to New York prosecutors as “human scum.” He, too, has seen fans rally around him, with his polling numbers for a potential Republican presidential primary in 2024 going up and some supporters even going so far as to compare Trump’s indictment to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Conservative media, like Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, have rallied around Trump as well — as has the GOP establishment.
That’s the big difference between the two cases: In 1973, it wasn’t a hard call for GOP leaders to abandon Agnew, ashamed by his corruption and worried it would blow back on the party. Today, by contrast, abandoning Trump seems unthinkable, as Republicans worry about their base erupting in fury.
This dichotomy suggests that had Agnew faced the same investigation in 2023, his fate might have been different. At the very least, he could have claimed to be the latest victim of the “woke” mob and used social media — which would have suited his pugnacious politics — to indulge in victimhood, insults and conspiracy theories, 24/7. Always pressed for money — a need that led to his taking bribes in the first place — Agnew would also now probably be able to market his fall from office into untold millions.
It’s a sobering reminder of how much politics and media have changed since 1973 and, as Trump’s poll numbers rise, how legal malfeasance, far from ending a political career, can regenerate it in our polarized political climate.