Whereas much of the nation was outraged in October 1973 when the president moved to have Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox fired, Nixon believed that he had the authority to make whatever decisions were necessary involving executive-branch appointments. In a letter to Robert Bork, who was the only person willing to carry out the order, he accused Cox of refusing to comply with his orders and said: “Clearly the government of the United States cannot function if employees of the executive branch are free to ignore in this fashion the instructions of the president.” Invoking executive privilege, he refused to turn over White House recordings to Congress or the Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, warning that doing so would “set a precedent that would cripple all future presidents by inhibiting conversations,” until the Supreme Court forced his hand in July of 1974.

His expansive views of the presidency went far beyond the investigation. Before the nation ever heard the term Watergate, the president had aggressively flexed his presidential muscle when he impounded funds appropriated by Congress—refusing to spend the money—and conducted a secret war in Cambodia. President Trump is trying to claim the same kind of complete, unaccountable presidential power, and will depend on this claim in the coming months as he faces heightened scrutiny.

Since executive power might not be enough, President Trump is also escalating his campaign to discredit the multiple institutions that are investigating him. The president’s attacks on “fake news” continue and he has intensified his criticism of the FBI, the Justice Department, and now he is unloading a full-scale assault on Mueller and his team. This part of Trump’s strategy is also very Nixonian. President Nixon loved to go after his attackers. The press was a favorite target. Like Trump, Nixon saw a liberal media establishment that was out to get him. While Nixon was more restrained in his comments about specific reporters, he too unleashed an ongoing barrage against how journalists wanted to bring him down from power because he was too conservative and because he was not part of the establishment.

Nixon, who saw the press as the “enemy,” was not shy about his feelings. He attacked the press in speeches, he kept an “enemies list” of reporters who didn’t like him, and the Department of Justice took an aggressive stand against journalists who withheld sources. When one reporter asked him in September 1973 about his feelings on the loss of public confidence in his leadership, Nixon curtly responded: “It’s rather difficult to have the president of the United States … by innuendo, by leak, by, frankly, leers and sneers of commentators—which is their perfect right—attacked in every way without having some of that confidence being worn away.” William Paley, the chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System, responded to the “repeated attacks” on the press by insisting that they would “continue to do an outstanding job in newsgathering, reporting and analysis…”