Vociferous Republican defenders of President Trump throughout his potential impeachment ought to remember the fate of Charles Sandman.
Sandman, a Republican congressman from New Jersey, was perhaps the single most vociferous defender of President Richard Nixon during the Watergate hearings. As described by the New York Times — and as I remember it, too, remarkably vividly, from my childhood — Sandman’s “strategy was to construe the evidence as narrowly as possible, require ironclad proof and propose benign explanations of information damaging to the President.”
Sandman ended up not only with egg on his face, but with his political career in shambles. After four terms in the House, the last of which was won with a whopping 66% of the vote, he was trounced for reelection in 1974, receiving only 41%.
His fate was a shame. He was a good man. An air navigator during World War II and a POW in a German camp for seven months, a former majority leader of the state Senate, and described by moderate New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean as “a man of warmth, compassion and unfailing good humor,” Sandman paid the price for too avidly toeing the party line in the face of growing evidence of Nixonian perfidy.
So, so many Republicans falling all over themselves defending Trump might want to take a cue from that Watergate experience, and, well, run from the fate of the man who went by the name of the Sandman. Trump, just as Nixon, may be putting their careers at risk.
After all, more and more disturbing evidence emerges that Trump and his close associates acted in seemingly shady ways with regard to Ukraine, Turkey, and Russia. Trump is famously impulsive, not to mention heedless of warnings, of precedent, and of ordinary restrictions on behavior. Even more than with Nixon in 1973-1974, one can easily imagine that at least some of this evidence will turn into devastatingly irrefutable proof of high crimes.
The Republicans furiously defending Trump now may or may not be right about Trump’s innocence. Even if they are right, a little more measured judiciousness would hurt neither them nor Trump. And if they’re wrong, well, their political careers might be put to a sleep as deep as the Sandman’s.
