Story highlights A special counsel and congressional committees have intensified their focus

The reality of impeachment: politics and public opinion count

Washington (CNN) Clandestine meetings. Special counsels. Congressional probes. Sound familiar? The constellation of headline-driving drama in today's news recalls the machinations that engulfed Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton for years of their respective tenures. Those episodes offer insight to understanding the still fresh events unfolding around the Trump administration.

Forty-three years ago this summer, the US Supreme Court forced President Richard Nixon to turn over White House tapes related to a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate building. The unanimous decision, written by a chief justice appointed by Nixon, represented a judicial climax in the Watergate scandal and heightened the political momentum towards Nixon's Aug. 8 resignation.

The House judiciary committee voted on articles of impeachment three days after the ruling, and soon after Nixon stalwarts such as conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater intervened to persuade the President to go. "There are only so many lies you can take," Goldwater told Republican colleagues on August 6, 1974. "Nixon should get his ass out of the White House -- today!"

Now, with energy building in the federal investigations into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion by Trump campaign associates with Russian officials, comparisons to Nixon are growing. Special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees have intensified their focus on a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort had with a Russian lawyer and others.

A Monmouth University poll released this week found that 41% of the public think Trump should be impeached and removed from office (53% disagree). That's a much larger share than supported impeachment for Nixon in July 1973 when much of the evidence related to Watergate emerged. At the time, 24% supported impeachment and 62% opposed it. By the first week of August 1974, Gallup reported that 57% said Nixon's actions were serious enough to warrant removal from office.

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