Although more than 50 years have passed, the Watergate affair remains a cautionary tale of the threat of untrammelled presidential power and the yardstick against which all other political scandals are judged.
Yet some historians believe its architect, former president Richard Nixon, risks being usurped as the norm-breaking exemplar of presidential corruption by Donald Trump and the firestorm over his role in the 2021 US Capitol assault.
Mr Nixon's underlying crime was covering up a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington's Watergate complex that was aimed at stealing documents that might have helped him in an election he would ultimately win by a landslide anyway.
The accusations against Mr Trump — that he incited a deadly riot to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as part of a conspiracy to overturn an election — appear “far more serious”, says history professor Michael Green.
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First gentleman Douglas Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris, US President Joe Biden and wife Jill Biden salute the crowd after their electoral victory on November 7, 2020. Outgoing president Donald Trump has yet to concede his loss. AFP -
Rudy Giuliani, lawyer for former president Donald Trump, gives a press conference in the car park of the Four Seasons landscaping company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after Joe Biden was declared as winner of the 2020 presidential election, which he claimed was false. As a result of these claims, Mr Giuliani can no longer practice law in the state of New York. EPA -
Donald Trump meets Clint Hickman, vice chairman of Arizona's 4th District, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, at Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, Mr Hickman said that he refused to take calls from the White House and Mr Trump, who he said was trying to overturn the battleground state's results. AP -
Four days before the Capitol riot, Donald Trump placed a call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked the official to 'find' 11,780 votes to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the battleground state. The House committee investigators have already interviewed election officials in the state. AP -
Ruby Freeman was an employee of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections in Atlanta, Georgia, during the 2020 presidential election. After the state went to Joe Biden, Donald Trump accused Ms Freeman of stealing ballots in a call with Brad Raffensperger, who told Mr Trump that he was being misled by claims on social media. Reuters -
Kimberly Guilfoyle, engaged to Donald Trump's son, boasted to a Republican operative that she had raised $3 million for the rally that helped fuel the January 6 Capitol riot. She may be called to testify. AFP -
Kash Patel, chief of staff to former acting secretary of defence Christopher Miller, gave a deposition on Capitol Hill to the committee on December 9, 2021. Members of the committee and staff members had been meeting with Mr Patel and 'Stop the Steal' organiser Ali Alexander. Getty Images / AFP -
The Willard Hotel in Washington played home to a 'war room' set up by advisers of Donald Trump and has become the focus of the congressional investigation into the January 6 attack. AFP -
Former White House chief strategist in the Trump administration Steven Bannon leaves a federal courthouse in Washington after being indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress. EPA -
Roger Stone, a former adviser and confidant of Donald Trump, gave a deposition before the committee in which he repeatedly pled the Fifth Amendment when questioned. Getty Images / AFP -
Bennie Thompson was chosen by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to lead the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack on the US Capitol. Getty Images / AFP -
Bennie Thompson meets Liz Cheney, vice-chair of the select committee, Adam Kinzinger and Jamie Raskin on Capitol Hill. The committee voted unanimously to recommend contempt of Congress charges for former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark for defying his subpoena, refusing to answer questions and failing to hand over documents to the committee. Getty Images / AFP -
Liz Cheney, committee chairman Bennie Thompson and other members of the committee speak to reporters after meeting with Nancy Pelosi. Reuters -
Republican Scott Perry of Pennsylvania helped promote theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, resulting in millions of tax dollars spent on recounts in the state. Election workers there were also threatened with violence. Reuters -
Chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party Kelli Ward led the charge to pressure Maricopa County officials to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election. Ms Ward also said that 'outside agitators' were responsible for the deadly attack. AP -
Jim Jordan, a Republican congressman, admitted to speaking with Donald Trump on January 6. Reuters -
Lawyer John Eastman spoke with Donald Trump's personal legal representative Rudy Giuliani at the January 6 'Stop the Steal' rally in Washington. During the melee, Mr Eastman emailed Greg Jacobs, aid to vice president at the time Mike Pence, to say that it was Mr Pence's fault that the riot was taking place because he refused to block the election's certification results. Reuters -
Before Mike Pence could certify the Electoral College votes before Congress, the last step in the process before Joe Biden was to be sworn in, rioters breached the US Capitol. Outside the chamber doors, a person was shot and police officers were beaten and trampled as some rioters yelled: 'Hang Mike Pence!' EPA -
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said he has no intention of complying with a subpoena to appear before the committee and missed a scheduled deposition. Committee members voted unanimously to pursue criminal contempt charges against Mr Meadows for refusing to give evidence. AFP -
In a legal setback, a federal appeals court ruled against Donald Trump, demanding he turn over White House records to the committee. AP -
Fox News host Sean Hannity sent text messages to the White House during the January 6 insurrection. AP -
The Oath Keepers is a US militia group that recruits former members of the military and law enforcement, with many participating in the January 6 attack. The committee has sent a subpoena to its founder, Stewart Rhoades, and several members have been arrested. AP -
The select committee subpoenaed Enrique Tarrio, naming him as leader of the Proud Boys, an extremist group that responded to Donald Trump’s call to descend on Washington and which played a central role in the attack on the Capitol. EPA -
US Olympic swimmer Klete Keller can be seen, with arms extended and wearing a blue kerchief covering his face, during the attack on the US Capitol. He pled guilty to one count of obstructing an official proceeding and is co-operating with the committee. AFP -
House select committee member Liz Cheney told CNN that a witness said Donald Trump's daughter and former White House adviser, Ivanka Trump, pleaded with her father to put a stop to the violence that took place on January 6. Getty Images / AFP -
On January 9, 2021, Twitter banned Donald Trump after he tweeted his support for the rioters. Reuters -
'Stop the Steal' organiser Ali Alexander gave a deposition on Capitol Hill to the committee. Getty Images / AFP -
Stephanie Grisham, former White House Press Secretary under former US president Donald Trump, leaves the O'Neill House office building following a meeting with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the US Capitol. Reuters
“One of the ironies is that Nixon did not need to order a break-in to win that election,” he said. “And there is no evidence, even with all of the tapes, that there was ever a discussion or thought of overturning the result if it went against him.”
Five Watergate burglars were caught red-handed on the evening of June 16 in 1972 and it quickly became clear that some were linked to Mr Nixon and the White House.
The ensuing investigation opened a Pandora's box of abuses and dirty tricks that included political spying, the forgery of correspondence and even the theft of a pair of shoes to intimidate a rival to Mr Nixon.
But the cover-up was initially so successful that Mr Nixon won 49 of the 50 states in his landslide victory over Democrat George McGovern in that year's presidential election.
The whitewash might have succeeded were it not for the chance discovery in the summer of 1973 that the president had secretly recorded all of his White House meetings.
They included a “smoking gun” tape in which Mr Nixon could be heard ordering that the FBI, which was set to investigate the Watergate break-in, be told to “stay the hell out of this”.
Mr Nixon resigned after a delegation of Republican elders, led by ultraconservative Barry Goldwater, came to the White House in 1974 to tell him he was likely to be impeached and the jig was up.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the reporters who played a pivotal role in bringing down Mr Nixon, have written a new foreword for their major book All the President's Men drawing parallels to Mr Trump.
They suggest that Mr Trump's incitement of a mob to march on the Capitol constituted “a deception that exceeded even Nixon's imagination”.
“By legal definition this is clearly sedition … thus Trump became the first seditious president in our history,” they say.
While the Senate voted unanimously to set up a cross-party investigative committee on Watergate, the Republicans of the 2020s vetoed a bipartisan commission and punished two members who joined the Democratic-led House committee investigating January 6.
About 80 million Americans — considerably more than a third of the population — tuned in to White House counsel John Dean's televised evidence given against Mr Nixon at the Watergate hearings, while about 20 million — only 6 per cent of Americans — watched the blockbuster first hearing put on by the January 6 panel.
For David Greenberg, author of Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image, the Watergate hearings were “instrumental” in bringing down a president attempting to subvert democracy.
“The difference, however, is that in 1973 and 1974, a great many Republican congressmen and senators loyal to Nixon ended up admitting that he was engaged in criminal activity,” he told AFP.
“Today, only a few … have been willing to acknowledge Trump's complicity. Our polarised, partisan environment may prevent the January 6 hearings from achieving all they should.”
AFP contributed to this report
