Dirty Tricks: Then and Now

Students of the Watergate era (or those old enough to have lived through it) will recall the “dirty tricks” played by Richard Nixon’s henchmen, most notably Donald Segretti. Mr. Segretti, who was hired by Nixon’s deputy assistant, Dwight Chapin, was tasked with smearing Democrats, including 1972 presidential candidate Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine. Among several “tricks,” Mr. Segretti composed a fake letter on Muskie’s letterhead falsely alleging that Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Washington Democrat, had fathered a child with a 17-year-old girl.

In 1974, Mr. Segretti pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal, even forged, campaign literature and served four months of a six-month prison sentence.

I mention this sordid history because some Democrats are playing similar “dirty tricks” on Donald Trump.

Read the entire column by Cal Thomas here.