Is it possible for a president’s political appointees to rein in a president with a penchant for abusing power? Yes. Michael Koncewicz, who listened to hundreds of hours of the Nixon tapes, digs deep into the Richard Nixon presidency and shows exactly how Republicans put loyalty to the Constitution over loyalty to one man. In They Said No to Nixon: Republicans Who Stood Up to the President’s Abuses of Power (University of California Press, 2018) readers will learn how Nixon was unable to use the I.R.S as a weapon against those on his “enemies list,” and how Nixon was thwarted from cutting federal fund to M.I.T. to punish faculty for anti-war protests. And readers will understand how Elliot Richardson was getting under Nixon’s skin well before the Saturday Night Massacre. “They Said No Nixon,” documents both how dangerous the Nixon presidency was to the fabric of democracy, and how the Republican Party’s moderate wing was essential to curtailing grievous abuses of presidential power. Bill Scher is a Contributing Editor for POLITICO Magazine. He has provided political commentary on CNN, NPR and MSNBC. He has been published in The New York Times, The New Republic, and The New York Daily News among other publications. He is author of Wait! Don’t Move to Canada, published by Rodale in 2006.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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