Hillary Clinton: The new Nixon?

“This is like the Nixon tapes, in a sense,” said Ken Khachigian, who was a young speechwriter on Nixon’s White House staff and is now a grizzled veteran of California’s Republican political wars. “Everybody wanted access. We resisted, and then they were eked out in death by a thousand cuts. Finally they were expropriated and now belong to the archives.”

“In some ways, this is no different,” he added. “But Nixon’s motivation was to record history, frankly. Her motivation was to control history. It’s obvious that she was wary of having her fate in the hands of other people, and it just underscores the secretiveness that she’s had for years, and how wary she is, looking over her shoulder.”

There is, of course, a bitter paradox in the fact that Clinton, as a young staffer on the House Judiciary Committee, actually worked on Nixon’s impeachment. Yet to Clinton’s critics, comparisons between the two flow — easily. Rep. Pete Roskam (R-Ill.), a member of the select committee on Benghazi, issued a statement declaring, “The last time we saw a high government official seeking to edit their responses was President Nixon,” adding – with dubious historical accuracy – “and at least then he enjoyed the benefit of executive privilege.”