President Donald Trump’s administration has already earned the dubious distinction of being engulfed in the biggest scandal in American history, multiple historians tell Axios.
In fact, historian Jon Meacham tells Axios that Trump’s administration is so scandal-plagued that it “transcends scandal” in a way that is without precedent in American history.
“It’s a national crisis in the sense of a period of elevated stakes, high passions, and possibly permanent consequences,” he explains. “We’re in the midst of making history more than we are reflecting it.”
Starting with Trump’s hush money payoffs to adult film star Stormy Daniels, then moving to negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow while running for president, and then finally touching on Trump overruling national security officials to grant security clearance to his own daughter and son-in-law, Axios paints a portrait of a president who is completely unbound by any ethical or moral scandals.
“Historians tell Axios that the only two scandals that come close to Trump-Russia are Watergate, which led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, and the Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s, in which oil barons bribed a corrupt aide to President Warren Harding for petroleum leases,” Axios writes. “But historians say that both Watergate and Teapot Dome were more limited because a foreign power wasn’t a central player, and a much narrower band of potential offenses was under investigation.”