On 17 June 1972, a nightwatchman stumbled across a burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC – triggering what became known as Watergate, the investigation that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
Fifty years on, the historian Colin Kidd reflects on Watergate’s renewed relevance in a populist, post-Trump era. Did the scandal help fuel today’s political conspiracy theories? And did Donald Trump’s war on “fake news” begin with the “journalistic aggrandisement” of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein?
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