“Politics had infiltrated every corner of government—a strong-arm takeover of the agencies by the Nixon White House.” —Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President’s Men

I recently reread All the President’s Men and was taken back to a time I believed America would never experience again. NEVER.

More than half a century after Watergate, the country is AGAIN confronting an old and dangerous question:

Do presidential appointees serve the country, or the man who appointed them?

Recent Senate hearings offered a disturbing answer.

Jay Clayton, President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence; Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer and nominee for attorney general; and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth each faced a basic test of independence and truthfulness.

Each failed it.

Senator Jon Ossoff asked Clayton a simple question:

“Who won the 2020 election?”

“I’m not going to do this with you,” Clayton replied.

Clayton acknowledged that Joe Biden had been certified president and insisted he was “not an election denier,” yet refused to say Biden won.

That was not caution. It was willful evasion.

A director of national intelligence must assess facts objectively and tell a president what he may not want to hear. Clayton could not acknowledge a settled historical fact that contradicted Trump’s fairy-tale narrative.

Telling the truth, apparently, carried more risk than withholding it.

Clayton also told senators that intelligent leadership requires “decisive judgment, discipline, integrity, and effective communication.” Yet when asked for a decisive, truthful answer, he withheld it. Nevertheless, the Intelligence Committee advanced his nomination 9–8 along party lines.

Before joining the Justice Department, Todd Blanche represented Donald Trump in criminal cases, including the federal prosecution concerning Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Blanche claimed to the committee that he had recused himself from all January 6 matters.

Senator Adam Schiff challenged that claim by citing the department’s move to vacate (cancel) the convictions of 12 January 6 defendants. Blanche acknowledged that his department had acted in those cases.

“So, you didn’t recuse yourself from that matter,” Schiff responded.

Blanche’s defense? The rules did not require recusal.

But technical legality is not ethical independence. The nation’s chief law-enforcement officer should not exercise authority over cases tied to his former client and current president.

At a July 21 Senate hearing, Ossoff confronted the defense secretary with his earlier declaration, two weeks into the Iran war, that Iran’s military had been “destroyed” and rendered “combat ineffective.”

Months later, Iranian forces still retained missile, naval and other combat capabilities, while American military operations continued.

Was Hegseth’s statement accurate?

Rather than answer directly, Hegseth narrowed his claim. The exchange exposed the difference between a factual military assessment and a glorified political message crafted to support the president’s narrative.

The Secretary of Defense owes the American people and those who serve in the military the unvarnished truth. Declaring an enemy destroyed while requesting billions more to continue fighting it is not clarity.

It’s contradiction.

Watergate was not merely a burglary. It demonstrated what happens when officials treat loyalty to a president as their highest obligation. The constitutional damage was carried out by lawyers and agency leaders who persuaded themselves that protecting the president meant protecting the country.

It did not then.

It does not now.

Clayton would not contradict Trump’s election lie. Blanche blurred the boundary between the president’s lawyer and the people’s lawyer. Hegseth defended a presidential war narrative that his own testimony — his own testimony —could not sustain.

These are not isolated moments. They reveal a governing standard: The president’s version of events must not be contradicted and his decisions must be defended despite the facts.

This is not about Republican vs. Democrat. It’s about democracy vs. “a strong-arm takeover” of our government—a government of the people and for the people.

Woodward and Bernstein exposed a government whose officials confused service to one man with service to the nation.

We are watching it all over again.

The title remains the same.

Only the cast has changed.