Bag Man Bonus Episode: Indictment Edition

About this episode:

In 1973, in the throes of the Watergate scandal, three young federal prosecutors uncovered a separate criminal scheme being run inside the White House — the sitting vice president, Spiro Agnew, was taking envelopes stuffed with cash in exchange for official acts as an elected official. If Nixon left office, Agnew would be the next President. And so, what would happen if the President was charged with a federal crime? Worse yet, what if he was convicted? Now that Donald Trump has been charged with 37 federal crimes — as he runs again for president — Rachel Maddow and Bag Man executive producer Mike Yarvitz talk with the three Spiro Agnew prosecutors who have the only experience in our nation’s history with a situation like this.

Transcript:

SPIRO AGNEW: I say this to you — the conduct of high individuals in the Department of Justice, particularly the conduct of the chief of the criminal investigation division of that department, is unprofessional and malicious and outrageous. It is my intention to use the courts of this country in an attempt to gain permission to examine under oath these people who are trying to destroy me politically through the abuse of the criminal justice system of the United States. (applause) 

Because of these tactics which have been employed against me, because small and fearful men have been frightened into furnishing evidence against me, they have perjured themselves in many cases, it’s my understanding. I will not resign if indicted. I will not resign if indicted (applause).

RACHEL MADDOW: Richard Nixon’s Vice President, Spriro Agnew. I will not resign if indicted.

When Spiro Agnew gave that defiant speech in September 1973, the Nixon Administration was just under incredible pressure. The Watergate investigation was in full swing. It was getting worse and worse for President Nixon by the day, and everyone, particularly President Nixon, knew it.

The White House was basically in chaos. The President himself, personally, was kind of a mess. The Justice Department was pretty sure at that point that the presidency of Richard Nixon was going to be cut short. That one way or another, Nixon was not likely to make it to the end of that term.

But when Vice President Spiro Agnew gave that indignant speech talking about these people inside the Justice Department who are trying to destroy him, saying he would refuse to resign even if he was ever indicted, he was not talking about potential charges stemming from the Watergate investigation.

What Agnew was talking about was his own thing. His own troubles. He was talking about this.

JOHN CHANCELLOR: Washington was stunned today by the disclosure that Vice President Agnew is under criminal investigation by federal authorities in his home state of Maryland.

RACHEL MADDOW: While the Watergate investigation was front of mind for the whole country, three young, federal prosecutors out of Maryland, working under the U.S. Attorney in Maryland, they discovered that there was something else criminal going on in the Nixon administration. They discovered that the Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was running an active criminal scheme of his own from inside the White House. He was accepting bribes — literal envelopes stuffed full of cash — in exchange for official acts as an elected official.

That is why Spiro Agnew was railing against the Justice Department in that speech. Because they were daring to investigate him for his illegal extortion and kickback scheme. Which he absolutely — in fact — was running from inside the White House.

Ultimately, the three young federal prosecutors on that case, they turned up enough evidence to bring dozens of federal criminal charges against Agnew. They wanted him put on trial. They wanted a conviction. They were sure they would get a conviction if they put him on trial. And once they got a conviction, they wanted Agnew to go to prison for what he had done.

And that was their job to be sure, right? Nobody is above the law. But charging someone while they are in the White House — that was a novel concept. It was a complicated prospect.

JOHN CHANCELLOR: The constitutional problems raised by the Agnew investigation are bewildering. We’ve never had a problem like this one before.

RACHEL MADDOW: Spiro Agnew was refusing to resign if he was indicted. And with President Richard Nixon likely on his way out because of Watergate, there was a very very good chance that Spiro Agnew was about to become President.

If Agnew ascended to the Presidency, what would happen if there was a pending indictment against him? What would happen if he was on trial in that moment? What would happen if he was convicted? Was he going to try to be President from prison? Was he going to try to say well now that I’m President, you cannot hold me in prison?

The Justice Department ultimately decided that it would be best for the country not to find out the answers to those questions.

JOHN CHANCELLOR: Spiro T. Agnew became a private citizen today, and less than one hour after his resignation as Vice President became official, he was convicted of a criminal charge of tax evasion.

NBC REPORTER: Mister Agnew and the Justice Department had agreed on a bargain. Mr. Agnew resigns as Vice President and pleads no contest to one count of income tax evasion. The Justice Department drops all other pending charges.

RACHEL MADDOW: In the end, the Justice Department struck a deal with Spiro Agnew. They made public the evidence of the dozens of crimes they believed that he had committed. But then they let him plead no contest to just a single charge of tax evasion. All those felonies evaporated. Serious prospect of serious prison time — poof, gone. But in exchange for that, what they made him give up was big. It was a condition of his plea deal that he resign as Vice President.

And that deal is very much not what those three prosecutors wanted. At least, not initially. They had worked so hard to investigate and expose all of Agnew’s crimes. They were ready to go to trial.

But what the Attorney General Elliot Richardson believed, and what the prosecutors came to agree with was that the interests of justice would be best served if they did this deal. If they, yes, told the world what they believed Agnew had done, but then they got him out of office and made that the priority, thus preventing a national crisis and the potential collapse of our constitutional system of government with a President trying to run the country from prison and a legal system trying to decide if they could keep him there.

This whole episode has of course been very much overshadowed in history by Watergate, which happened very near to this time. All that drama and what happened to President Nixon and his resignation and his pardon, it is understandable that Agnew has ended up a political trivia question alongside all of that.

But a few years ago, we ended up with someone else in the White House who looked like he might conceivably face federal criminal investigation.

And suddenly this sort of lost-to-history precedent became really relevant. Almost urgently relevant. 

So in 2018 with producer Mike Yarvitz, I made a seven-part podcast about it. And then we wrote a book about it.

And now, the Agnew case is kind of back again as we enter into this newest chapter of crime and high-level politics in American history.

Because now we’ve got someone facing federal criminal charges who is — yes — a former President. But he’s also a presidential candidate. A leading presidential candidate. At this point he is the far-and-away front runner for the Republican party’s presidential nomination.

And the Agnew case really is the closest thing we’ve got to a precedent of someone in that position facing federal criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Now crucially of course, the defendant today is not a current official like Agnew was. He’s a former official. And the Justice Department has decided to go ahead and indict him and put him on trial. It never got to that point with Agnew because they let him agree to that plea deal where he agreed to resign, in effect, in order to make all his charges go away.

But the U.S. Justice Department is again facing this same almost unthinkable prospect of a criminal defendant — potentially a jailed felon — ascending to the presidency.

JOHN CHANCELLOR: We’ve never had a problem like this one before.

RACHEL MADDOW: The young federal prosecutors who faced the Agnew crisis really were facing something brand new when they contended with this in 1973. But they lived to tell the tale as we now face something very much like this again.

In the podcast Bag Man, Mike Yarvitz and I spoke to the three prosecutors who investigated Spiro Agnew, who wrestled with the ramifications for the constitution and the country of putting a potential President behind bars.

I have been thinking about these three guys a lot lately, wondering what they think about what’s happening in the news right now, and if they have any advice for us as we grapple with something sort of like this again.

Those three young men are named Tim Baker and Ron Liebman and Barney Skolnik. And all three of them join us now.

Hi you guys! It’s good to see you.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Hello.

RON LIEBMAN: Hi, Rachel.

TIM BAKER: Hi.

RACHEL MADDOW: We’re also joined by an even younger guy. Mike Yarvitz, my longtime producer and colleague. Mike and I made Bag Man together back in 2018. Hi Mike. Good to see ya.

MIKE YARVITZ: Hello, Rachel. Hello guys.

RON LIEBMAN: Hi Mike.

TIM BAKER: Mike.

RACHEL MADDOW: Part of what happened with Agnew, in terms of that plea bargain, was thinking about what he had to trade away. And the biggest thing he had to trade away was his current office.

There was also the specter that he was going to ascend to the presidency if Nixon fell for whatever reason. Did you ever consider as, as part of, part of those plea negotiations, did, was it ever talked about that it would not just be about Agnew agreeing to resign, but agreeing never to stand for office again? Or were you able to just assume that if he was forced out under these circumstances that he’d never even try to run again?

TIM BAKER: I don’t think that ever came up of his running, trying to run again. And I think, I think if he, we just assumed, tacitly I guess, that if he resigned as a part of some kind of plea deal, no matter what the plea– if he resigned, that would end his, basically end his political career. What we, we were concerned about was, we wanted jail time. And we argued long and hard with Elliot Richardson about that. And he ultimately, ultimately he did persuade us. But it took a lot. I, it may be relevant to say one of Richardson’s arguments that, that sort of fits in here — Barney was arguing with, with Richardson. Barney said, “Just let us indict him. Just let us indict him. He’ll have to resign.” And Richardson responded, “Barney, supposed he doesn’t resign and supposed you guys go to trial. Yes, you have an overwhelming case, but supposing he takes the stand and begins to testify in his own defense, and while he is testifying, word comes that Nixon has dropped dead and he is now the President of the United States.”

Well, that was an– that took us back. That was a real turning point.

RACHEL MADDOW: Can I ask you though to, to keep going with that thought experiment?  He’s indicted. He’s on trial, he’s testifying in his own defense. Word comes down, burbles through the courtroom that Nixon has died or resigned, and now Agnew is President. And then what happens? 

TIM BAKER: Well, I think, I think the point of the argument that persuaded me, at least, I think it was, oh my God, we can’t let that happen. We gotta get him out of there. We can’t let it happen that he, even in the middle of a trial becomes president, just can’t. So.

RACHEL MADDOW: It’s unthinkable.

MIKE YARVITZ: Barney, if you, if you had been, if you had been questioning the witness at that point, or, or you know, Agnew’s on the stand and, and word came down, what would you have done?

BARNEY SKOLNIK: [laughs]

TIM BAKER: Had a heart attack.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Oh, what a fun thing to think about. Yeah I, you know, I, we were consumed with the thought meeting with the Attorney General in July and August and September that Nixon could drop dead tomorrow. And then it’s not just that we don’t have a case, we don’t have a job because, you know, the next day if he’s President, you know, you know how politicians always talk about what they’ll do on their first day in office? We knew what Agnew would do on his first day in office and it wasn’t pretty.

And we were, you know, young bullheaded and, and competent enough to be able to calculate whether or not we were comfortable entertaining that possibility. And the answer, of course, was no. I mean, I, I remember very well that, that was a big part of my own metamorphosis from he’s gotta go to jail, to how soon can we get his ass in court and have him resign? A big part of that was Nixon.

RACHEL MADDOW: In terms of the analogy and how it fits and how it doesn’t, you know, if the Trump trial does get pushed till after the election, it’s not Nixon dying, it’s Trump getting elected, which then affects that same series of events, right?

I mean, we know what he would do on his day one in office if elected to a second term. He’d make the whole thing poof as well. He’d probably abolish the Justice Department as we know it.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Rachel, I’m 82 and conscious of my own mortality, and I do not contemplate Trump becoming president again. I mean, I, I just don’t think that’s gonna happen.  And I don’t want to think about the possibility that it might. If you want to, if you want to go down that path, you go down it without me.

RON LIEBMAN: You know, there’s a, there’s an interesting sort of irony here. Agnew’s criminal problems ended his political career, and it’s quite possible that Trump’s criminal problems will enhance his political career.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Yep.

MIKE YARVITZ: Mm-hmm.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: But not to the point of his getting elected again.

RACHEL MADDOW: When you guys were considering the prosecution of Agnew and preparing potentially to put him on trial, did you think about, did you talk about the prospect that if he was put on trial and he was acquitted, that that might be sort of rocket fuel for his political future too?

TIM BAKER: If he was put on trial, he had no chance of being acquitted. We had an overwhelming case, no chance, even with a hostile judge.

RACHEL MADDOW: Hmm.

TIM BAKER: And, and we also had a hell of a good team. We weren’t just led by Barney Skolnik, who may have been the best prosecutor in the United States. But we also had a fabulous team of IRS agents led by [unintel], the best IRS agent ever.

MIKE YARVITZ: We interviewed Marty London for the podcast, who was one of Spiro Agnew’s defense attorneys at the time, who spoke about the impracticalities of trying and convicting a sitting Vice President and a man who might soon become President to include: Does he get secret service protection in jail?

And you know, if he’s convicted and, and sitting in jail and he suddenly becomes president, can he pardon himself from a jail cell? Were those considerations top of mind for you at all when it came to, you know, the, the resolution of that case and, you know, as it relates to the current moment, how do you assess those possibilities when it comes to the former President who may soon be elected President in the course of this?

RON LIEBMAN: Well let me take a first crack at it and my answer is going to be a little bit indirect because I’m not worried about the situation. I think the state of our union remains strong, and I think America will survive the Trump era. I have little doubt about it. Yes, there’s a, a sizable number of people with legitimate grievances who unfortunately find Trump appealing and, and buy into all the nonsense and the lies.

But fundamentally in my opinion, this country, the overwhelming majority are decent, law abiding people who, who tend to do the right thing, and they tend to do the right thing when they’re on juries. Yes there could always be a hung jury. And it’s a risk in this case, particularly who lies about jury service, who says all the right things to be impaneled but who really secretly wants to acquit the defendant. And a risk of a, of a hung jury here, I think is, is a real risk. The indictment is very strong. I think the case is very, very strong, and I think it’s quite likely if this case goes to trial, he will be convicted. But whether he is or whether he isn’t, and with all these moving parts, more indictments to come, Trump’s behavior, yada, yada, yada, I’m not worried.

I think America will survive this. And I feel that, I feel that in my bones.

RACHEL MADDOW: And does he take the secret service to prison?

RON LIEBMAN: Yeah. Well, you know, they probably won’t be allowed to be in the cell with him, but they can hang out outside and maybe, you know, he can get some chewing gum from them or whatever. But yeah, maybe.

RACHEL MADDOW: We’re talking with Tim Baker, Barney Skolnik, Ron Liebman, the federal prosecutors who brought charges against Vice President Agnew in 1973. We’ll be back with more, right after this.

I’m Rachel Maddow. I’m here with producer Mike Yarvitz, and our guests are Tim Baker, Barney Skolnik and Ron Liebman. They were the three young federal prosecutors who spearheaded the federal criminal investigation of a man who was then the sitting Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew. 

Just broadly speaking, what’s been your reaction to federal criminal charges being filed against Trump, both as a former President, but also as a Presidential candidate, as a sort of, I think at this point fair to say, a likely Republican party presidential nominee. When you found out that he was actually indicted, that they were going ahead with charges, how did you, how did you react or how have you felt about it since then?

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Well, I, I certainly wasn’t surprised. I think we’ve all been expecting multiple indictments for a long time and like so many other people we’ve been concerned that it took so long for the Department of Justice to get off its ass. So it was no surprise and will continue to be none as both Georgia and the January 6th investigation lead to indictments.

My primary reaction is and has been for months to be anxious and worried about our country, because he has the skill of a fascist to genuinely attract people with grievances and anger at their lives not being the way they want them to be.

And that’s what, that’s what fascists have done through history. The phrase “I am your retribution” is to me terrifying. What’s going on in this country with fully a third of the people of this country thinking that he is not just the right guy to have been president, but the right guy to be president again, that to me is terrifying. Even when he’s gone, a third of the country will probably still be looking for somebody who can persuade them that he is their retribution. And the thought that, that I will die with our country in that kind of shape is, you know the phrase, what keeps you up at night? That, that’s what keeps me up at night.

RACHEL MADDOW: Hmm. Given the kind of power that you’re describing him having and the way his power works, the kind of grip on people that you’re describing, do you think that having federal charges pending against him is a risk to the legal system, a risk to the constitutional order, or do you think it’s the opposite?

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Well, there is certainly a risk, but I don’t see that the country has any viable alternative.

RACHEL MADDOW: Tim, what was your reaction, or what’s been your reaction over time as we’ve seen these indictments of Trump?

TIM BAKER: No Department of Justice worthy of its name could have failed to bring these charges. Those charges had to be brought, and yet they scare the hell out of me. I am terrified that he somehow could be acquitted in the Southern District of Florida. I’m very suspicious of, of that judge who was so tilted in Trump’s favor back when the issues around the grand jury subpoena were being litigated. And who was, the 11th circuit just tromped on her. 

But trying a case in front of a judge who’s against you, those of us who’ve had the pleasure, it, it is hell. And it, and a judge is against you in lots of ways that are not reversible error can, can ruin your case. And if Trump is acquitted, I think that’ll probably elect him president again.

And for all the reasons Barney talked about, that is a terrifying prospect for our country, for my children, and my grandchildren. So I, I think the overwhelming thing that comes to mind, the overwhelming issue is the effect of this and other cases on the 2024 presidential election. Now, I have no idea what the effect is gonna be. This hasn’t played out, but it could play out very, very badly.

RACHEL MADDOW: If Trump is in the classified documents case facing a legal situation in which things don’t look good for him. The judge is letting the case proceed in a way that is fair and sort of straight down the middle. And the evidence is holding up and looks as strong in the courtroom as it does in the indictment. If it’s all looking bad for Trump and he conceivably is facing both conviction and a, and a prison sentence, should the Justice Department offer him a plea deal that includes trading away the threat of jail time for him agreeing to never stand for public office again?

TIM BAKER: Ron should answer that as brilliantly as he answered it on your program the other night.

RACHEL MADDOW: And then I’ll ask you both to agree with him.

RON LIEBMAN: The answer is no. I mean, even if it’s Trump rather than the Justice Department that comes up with the notion that foregoing a political career should be part of a plea deal, and even if it’s documented and put in writing in black and white, Trump will tell his people, “You know, you see what they did to me? It was their idea. They wanted me not to run for office. Well, I had to take the deal because I had to be here available to do your bidding. And I’m here even though I’m no longer in public office. I’m here and I’m your guy.” So my answer is, and has been emphatically, no.

RACHEL MADDOW: Why didn’t Agnew try that against you guys?

RON LIEBMAN: Agnew, Agnew was a crook, and a bad guy. But comparing his behavior and his mindset to Trump is like comparing, I don’t know, an astronaut to a six year old child. It just doesn’t compute for me.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: I totally agree with Ron’s simple conclusion that the answer is no, there should be no such deal. What Trump has going for him with regard to any deal is that he is a Republican being prosecuted under a Democratic administration and all the, all the, you know, weaponization and other similar crap that he and his apologists can make out of that. 

Agnew didn’t have that because Agnew had a Republican adminis– he was a Republican being prosecuted by a Republican president, a Republican Department of Justice and a Republican Attorney General. So you know that that line about, you know, politicalization and weaponization and so on, that just wasn’t available to Agnew, and therefore was never a consideration.

Whereas for the reasons Ron has articulated, it’s not just a consideration. It’s a very powerful, again, for the third of the country that buys this stuff, it’s a very powerful argument regardless of what the deal says and whether it’s in writing and whether it has a seal on it.

You know, he will, he will say he was forced to do it by the bad guys and he’s back to be your retribution. So I, I totally agree with Ron.

TIM BAKER: It would only confirm the belief that this prosecution is, was brought politically by a Democratic administration to knock Trump out as a, as Biden’s opponent in 2024. Agnew did try. He had a Republican administration, a Republican Attorney General, a Republican U.S. attorney. But the, the three of us were all Democrats and he did try and go after us.

He went after Barney because he’d worked for Muskie in the primaries. And he went after me because — shield your children from this — because he thought I was a real pinko because I’d been a Peace Corps volunteer.

RACHEL MADDOW: Ah, no, we have to end this right now.

RON LIEBMAN: I remember us being in the car with George Bell, going to Washington when he said to us, “You know guys, I never asked you, are you registered Republicans or Democrats?”

RACHEL MADDOW: Did you tell him?

Mike Yarvitz: And what did you say?

RON LIEBMAN: Yeah, yeah. We told him. He didn’t care.

RACHEL MADDOW: We have much more to get to in this special episode of Bag Man. Stay with us.

Welcome back to our special bonus episode of the Bag Man podcast, I’m Rachel Maddow. I’m here with producer Mike Yarvitz and our guests, former federal prosecutors Tim Baker, Barney Skolnik and Ron Liebman, the three young federal prosecutors who prepared federal criminal charges against then-Vice President Spiro Agnew. 

So we’re going to be posting this on July 3rd, which I believe is the 50 year anniversary to the day of a scene that we described in Bag Man which has stuck with me ever since, which was you guys crammed into George Bell’s Audi 100 driving from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. to go meet with Attorney General Elliot Richardson for the first time to brief him in person on what was going on with the Agnew investigation.

And there was a lot of drama to the way we told that in the podcast, because I think you guys got pulled over, like there was at least some anxiety on your part in terms of what the Attorney General was gonna think. I was wondering on 50 years since that day, if you guys could tell us at all what that was, what that was like, when you were gonna bring your investigation and what you knew to the top of the Justice Department, essentially, for them to decide what they were gonna do with it.

TIM BAKER: Well, first of all, we were told not to come. The Attorney General’s secretary called us that morning. I think this was the third or fourth time that our proposed meeting with Attorney General Richardson had been canceled. And we were, it was canceled once again, and we all decided we got in George’s car and we came, we went over to Washington and met and, and sat in his waiting room anyway, even though we were told not to be there.

MIKE YARVITZ: And Tim, I believe it was you who, you know, after you did finally get into the Attorney General’s conference room and he, you know, had to step out for various calls. Ultimately it was you who George Bell turned to, I think, to, to explain what exactly you were there for. Is that right?

TIM BAKER: Yes. In a lot of ways, our principle concern was that the Department of Justice  would take our case away from us. And so the first order of business was to es– for George to establish our credibility that we in fact knew what we were doing. We had credentials, we had experience.

So George started out with that, and then Richardson would immediate– would get a note from his secretary, get up and leave, and was gone for what guys? Twenty minutes at one point? And we, we just thought he’d never come back and we never even got to tell, even mention the word Agnew.

So then he, then Barney and Ron will remember that he finally came back and we had said to George, get the, get to Agnew!. So that’s what George blurted out, and we immediately had Attorney General Richardson’s total attention.

RACHEL MADDOW: How old were all of you at the time?

RON LIEBMAN: I was the baby, I was 29.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: I was 32, the oldest.

TIM BAKER: And I was 31.

RACHEL MADDOW: 32, the oldest.

MIKE YARVITZ: Ron, can you talk about the months that proceeded you guys walking into the Justice Department? You at 29 years old were involved in some pretty heavy stuff for the country and the fate of the presidency. What, what was it like as a 29-year-old investigating the Vice President?

RON LIEBMAN: Well, one of the wonderful aspects of youth is you don’t really realize when you’re young that there’s something else beside it. So I really didn’t think about that. You know, we were three assistant U.S. attorneys with a case that grew from looking into bribery for zoning for land in Maryland to the Vice President of the United States.

None of us, I think, really thought about our age at all. It was a job we had to do. We did it. And our concern was that having built this case, that the Justice Department would, would not let three Baltimore federal prosecutors run with it. That was what was in our head.

RACHEL MADDOW: I know from, from talking to you guys and from the interviews that we did for Bag Man, that you guys all hold George Bell, your former boss, the U.S. Attorney, in really high esteem in general and in terms of how he supervised your work and the way that he sort of served as a little bit of a heat shield for you guys during the Agnew investigation.

Obviously, George Bell is no longer with us, but — this is a little bit unfair — I wonder what you, what you’d think that he would think of today’s Republican party and the Trump phenomenon. You know, George Bell was sort of Republican royalty from Maryland.

RON LIEBMAN: I, I think he would be appalled, absolutely appalled.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Yeah, as many Republicans are. George Bell and Elliot Richardson were both in and-or intending to be active in Republican politics. I have always thought that the heroes of the case are those two guys who had a great deal at stake, and they, and they took the right path, which, which was at least potentially, and I think probably in fact, especially as to George, a, a, you know, a, a sacrifice, because he was never heard in elective politics for the rest of his life, which, you know, went on for almost 50 years. He died just a few years ago. 

TIM BAKER: Barney, I don’t think George ever wanted to go into electoral politics, but he certainly looked forward to a career of, of Republican appointments to higher and higher offices, and he knew perfectly well that his chances of that happening would come to an end because of Agnew. And it, that’s exactly what did happen to Elliot Richardson.

He never again held a high kind of political office in Republican administrations. He got the throwaway jobs, and that was all because of Agnew, the part of the Republican party that never forgave him. And he knew it, and George knew it, and they didn’t blink.

RON LIEBMAN: Think how fortunate Barney, Timmy and I were to report to both George Bell and Elliot Richardson.

TIM BAKER: Absolutely. I wonder what will happen to those Republicans who are speaking up against Trump now — Romney, William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General has ridiculed Trump’s proposed defense to these documents charges, and Chris Christie is all over him about all kinds of things, and we’ll see who joins them on this.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Well, a lot more Republicans need to do it.

RACHEL MADDOW: Hmm. You guys were describing how Elliot Richardson and, and George Bell, your bosses took a much bigger risk than you did as individuals. But you did get singled out and attacked by the Vice President and he sort of tried to train the ire of his supporters against you guys for being Democrats for somehow being biased and trying to take him out. Was that a cause of stress for you in the moment and do you reflect at all in terms of the prosecutors, people like Jack Smith who are getting so much criticism from defendant Trump right now, do you have any advice for them?

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Well, Ron put it well a couple of weeks ago when he said you put your head down and you ignore the noise. I think that’s exactly right. And I’m sure that’s exactly what Jack Smith is doing. You know, the threat of, of violence is the thing that you can’t not be aware of. But the prosecutors are not in the position to do anything directly about that. They have to rely on the security organizations and so on. But I, I, I seriously doubt that Jack Smith or any of the other prosecutors are worried about being personally attacked verbally. 

RON LIEBMAN: Jack Smith, from what I’ve seen on TV, has, you know, has real armed security with him because the times are different. And you know, it’s, he needs it. In 1973, we didn’t. We, you know, we just didn’t.

TIM BAKER: You, you didn’t have a Secret Service guard on you all the– Ron, we must have forgotten that.

RON LIEBMAN: What? You guys had it, and I didn’t. Now you tell me.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: You were the junior. We thought nobody’s gonna attack you.

TIM BAKER: That’s right. They, they only had, they only had two agents they could spare.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Yeah,

RON LIEBMAN: Now you tell me. Jesus.

RACHEL MADDOW: It’s like running from a bear. You don’t have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than Ron.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: That’s right.

TIM BAKER: Rachel, one of the things we’ve talked about a little bit in the years since, but never even thought about at the time, was supposing the Saturday Night Massacre, which in which Elliot Richardson lost his job. Supposing that had occurred ten days before the plea deal was struck rather than ten days afterwards.

So suddenly our protector and our hero is gone. And suppose Nixon puts in a new John Mitchell who says to us very politely, well, of course he has to review the case and then just send everything over and I’ll look at it. And days go by, weeks go by, months go by. And every time we inquire, we’re kind of put off.

Supposing we decided to go ahead and bring an indictment anyway. Of course, we, you know, that would’ve been an unauthorized indictment, but it would’ve, we would’ve said that they’re covering that up over there, and we’re not gonna let that happen. The grand jury agrees. So here’s a, here’s an unauthorized indictment. Do your worst.

RON LIEBMAN: And that would’ve been our last official act.

TIM BAKER: You bet. We’d have been fired that day and probably disbarred.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Timmy I love when you talk dirty. Yes.

TIM BAKER: Well that would have been exciting.

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Very exciting.

RON LIEBMAN: That’s one way to put it, yup, yup.

RACHEL MADDOW: What would a judge do with an unauthorized indictment? I’m just trying to imagine being the judge in that circumstance, saying this is just from you three guys as citizens? It’s a citizen’s–

TIM BAKER: No no, the grand jury. Grand jury would’ve returned it, but it wouldn’t have been signed as indictment– federal indictments have to be, it wouldn’t have been signed by an authorized representative of the Department of Justice. The purpose of it would’ve been, you know, like a gigantic press release. And the press conference would’ve said, this is the Nixon administration doing it all over again, they’re covering it up. Imagine the firestorm.

RON LIEBMAN: And then we would’ve gone home to our spouses and said, “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.”

Mike Yarvitz: Would George Bell have signed that indictment? Would he have been considered an authorized representative of the Justice Department?

TIM BAKER: I don’t think — no, he wouldn’t. He was not authorized, and I don’t think we would’ve included him just out of respect, not asking him to go along. He would’ve been as surprised as everybody else and probably just as mad. But what, what else could we have done?

RACHEL MADDOW:, I feel a little bit like this time in history is, is this moment that’s training us to, to push ourselves further and further into the, into the “what if” territory. Because all the things that were previously unthinkable just keep happening. All the things that seemed like, oh, that would pose a constitutional crisis, and then who knows what would happen — we’re now in the, who knows what would happen bit of territory. It seems like over and over again a lot during the Trump presidency, but a lot right now with these prosecutions and with this 2024 campaign, I guess as just kind of a closing discussion here, I think a lot of Americans right now can see that we are in what if territory, see that we are in what feels like unprecedented territory or at least potential crisis territory.

And it can feel scary. It can feel worrying or confusing. It can make you wanna withdraw and not pay attention because it feels overwhelming. If you think there’s a prospect for a, you know, a civil war or some other terrible eventuality that you never thought you’d have to face in your life, and that now seems possible, it can be upsetting or innervating. And I wonder if you have anything to say, having been through a crisis of your own that you guys were intimately involved in and part of the decision makers about, I just wonder if you have any thoughts for people or anything you’d share with them about those kind of being involved in a big thing for your country where you really don’t know how it’s gonna end.

RON LIEBMAN: Well, we sort of addressed this earlier in this discussion. You know, on the one hand, this could destroy our country and our democracy, the rabble, the crowds could overtake the government. On the other hand, as I indicated I believe, I think this is another crisis. It’s a major crisis. A lot of moving parts, a lot of things unanticipated are going to happen. But I think, I think and I believe that the country gets through this. Trump will be remembered in history unkindly as he should. And then we’ll be on to the next crisis. Timmy, Barney, what do you guys think

BARNEY SKOLNIK: I don’t disagree with the proposition that we’ll get through this as a country. But I do, I do really worry about what happens to the country after Trump is gone. But there are still something like a third of the country looking for the next fella who, who says, give me power and I will fix your problems. I mean, to the extent that that’s a siren song that works and has worked throughout history, it doesn’t, it doesn’t stop singing to some people just because Trump personally is gone. And that, that continues for me to be a real concern.

TIM BAKER: I am not as sanguine as you all are that Trump cannot and will not win the 2024 election and become president again. I think he’s got a shot at it. I don’t underestimate it at all. And the consequences of that will be a, a disaster for our country. I really worry about it

RACHEL MADDOW: And now Tim, here’s the part where you say, “But here’s the reason why you shouldn’t despair.”

BARNEY SKOLNIK: Yeah, over to you, Tim.

TIM BAKER: If he becomes president again, I despair.

RACHEL MADDOW: Oh, great.

Mike Yarvitz: It’s not like the Agnew case established some kind of standing D.O.J. policy that a sitting president can’t be indicted.

TIM BAKER: Well, you know, the question is what if a man is elected President who has been indicted? Who has been convicted? Well, nobody knows the answer to that.

RACHEL MADDOW: I know that you guys think that George Bell and, and Elliot Richardson were the real heroes, but you guys did both very good work and had some heroics of your own. I also feel like the Agnew story is understandably overshadowed by what happened in Watergate, but I think it’s an important part of how we should think about the Justice Department contending with the rule of law versus political power. 

We are very lucky as a country that you guys at the nucleus of that story comported yourself with such skill and such dignity, because if you were jerks or if you’d made a bunch of mistakes, it would be harder to tell that story. But because you did it right and again, you comported yourself with such professionalism and dignity in a way that really stands up to history, we get to tell that history in a way that is unapologetic and I think still really illuminating and it keeps coming up as newly relevant. So I’m just happy that you guys are willing to talk to me and Mike.

Tim Baker, Ron Liebman, Barney Skolnik, it is an honor to talk to you guys. Alright fellas. Thank you. 

So that is going to do it for us, on this special bonus episode of Bag Man. Bag Man is a production of MSNBC and NBC News. It is executive produced by myself and Mike Yarvitz. This episode was written and produced by Kelsey Desiderio. Our associate producer is Janmaris Perez. Sound design by Cedric Wilson. Our technical director is Bryson Barnes. Our senior executive producers are Cory Gnazzo and Laura Conaway. Our web producer is Will Femia. And yu can read more about the investigation into Spiro Agnew — you can listen to all seven episodes of Bag Man — at our website, msnbc.com/bagman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 1: I’m just sick about it, I think he’s a man of his word and I think they’ve all been doing the same thing ever since I started voting, and I think it’s just too bad, I think he’s a great man.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: I thought he was one of the greatest men that this country has ever had.

REPORTER: What was your reaction to the resignation?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: I think it’s a sad thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 3: I think it was very unnecessary, I’m just, oh, I’m just sick. I’m very unhappy. I don’t think it was necessary, I think it’s a lot of political hogwash, and I’m oh!