Lawrence O’Donnall compared the Trump-backed indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James to former President Richard Nixon’s infamous “enemies list,” saying a key distinction of Nixon’s list is that those named continued to thrive despite being the late Republican’s adversaries.
“Most important thing to know about the [Nixon] enemies list is that it was a badge of honor,” O’Donnell said Thursday during “The Last Word” on MSNBC.
For those who are unaware, Nixon’s “enemies list” was a compilation of all the major political figures Nixon deemed as his rivals. It was released in June 1973 and included several high-profile figures like Jane Fonda, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Barbra Streisand.
“When the full version of the Nixon enemies list was unveiled by the Nixon White House counsel … by that time, everyone was hoping they were on it,” O’Donnell went on.
The host mentioned that while some of the names on the list may have had their phones tapped or their taxes audited, for the most part, their lives and public reputations remained unchanged.
“For just about all of the 200 or so people in the full version of the Nixon enemies list, nothing happened. In fact, they didn’t get screwed, they thrived,” O’Donnell explained. “Gene Hackman won his first Oscar while he was secretly on the Nixon enemies lists. Gregory Peck didn’t have to give back his Oscar because he was on Nixon’s enemies list, along with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen and New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, who was erroneously listed as the New York Giants quarterback. That’s how crazy Nixon’s enemies list was.”
Watch the full clip from “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell” in the video above.
