Trump's confrontation with Mueller 'eerily familiar' to Nixon 45 years ago, say Woodward and Bernstein

The journalists say the parallels are compelling

The firing of Cox was one of Nixon's many miscalculations (Getty)

Donald Trump’s confrontation with Robert Mueller is “eerily similar” to Richard Nixon’s battle with a special prosecutor 45 years ago, say the journalists who broke the Watergate story.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose reports in the Washington Post almost 50 years ago helped set in motion the events that led to Nixon’s resignation, said Mr Trump’s reported threat to oust Mr Mueller echoed the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of 1973, in which Archibald Cox was fired.

“We’re here again. A powerful and determined president is squaring off against an independent investigator operating inside the Justice Department,” they write, sharing a byline for the first time in five years.

They said they had covered Mr Nixon’s decision to take on the special prosecutor and considered it an “eerily similar confrontation”.

“Nixon didn’t know it at the time, but the Saturday Night Massacre would become a pivot point in his presidency - crucial to the charge that he’d obstructed justice. For him, the consequences were terminal,” they write, in an updated extract of their book The Final Days.

Last summer, it was widely reported Mr Trump wanted to fire Mr Mueller, who was appointed to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election, after the President fired FBI Director James Comey.

The White House repeatedly denied the claims. But last month, the New York Times confirmed that Mr Trump did indeed made such a decision, but changed his mind when White House counsel Donald McGahn threatened to quit if he did so

Nixon’s insistence on getting rid of Mr Cox led to the resignation of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who refused to carry out Nixon’s command.

In the end, the task fell to Solicitor General Robert Bork, the third in command at the Justice Department, who accepted the order and signed the White House draft of a two-paragraph letter firing the prosecutor

At 8.22pm on October 20, White House press secretary Ron Ziegler announced the news, adding: “The office of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force has been abolished as of approximately 8pm.”

“Soon thereafter, Nixon made two fateful miscalculations: He appointed another special prosecutor to replace Cox, and he turned over an initial batch of tapes, including one that vividly incriminated him,” the two reporters add.

“The Trump-Mueller history is yet to be written.”