Quick answer: 1974! The name was Watergate.

Watergate was a bungled break-in to steal Democratic files.

Trumpgate was clearly a bungled effort to engage some kind of surreptitious Russian support to aid his Presidential campaign. Whether such action was illegal or not, is irrelevant at this point, because of the crude attempts to cover them up; this vividly indicates that they did not want anyone to know what they even tried to do, whether it actually worked out or not.

The White House’s argument that there is/was nothing to see is on its face ridiculous, because, if there was in fact nothing there, there was nothing to hide. Make no mistake; it should be clear to all now that some things were actually being hidden.

During Watergate, it took several months for the Congress to thoroughly unpeel the onion and reveal the break-in. This new onion looks likely now to unpeel somewhat faster.

When the Republican leadership, finally and irreversibly, sees that the public understands the gravity of what happened, they will have to cut and run to save their own skins.

The standard test for impeachment is “high crimes and misdemeanors”, which basically means whatever Congress says it means. (And if fiddling with a foreign power to get involved in a presidential election is not a high crime or misdemeanor, we will never know what is!)

Happily, this scandal is beginning only about a month into Trump’s new and already doomed presidency, because he has yet to wreak the full havoc he had in mind.

Cover-ups are usually stupid mistakes. That Trump felt enough concern about whatever was really going on to try to rewrite the history of the election is starkly revealing. A case could be made that his crime was serious enough to nullify the election. That is very unlikely to happen because there is nothing in our Constitution that deals with such a situation. Accordingly, we should begin now to prepare to deal with President Pence.

As wacky and dangerous as our new president has revealed himself to be,   so far he has mainly thrown a bunch of poorly crafted and loosely aimed thunderbolts from his personal Olympus.

The big stuff on taxes, protectionist trade practices, immigration reform, healthcare reform, and national security have barely budged and require the Congress to get in on his act.

The Republican Congressional leadership is increasingly edgy and nervous that, if they do not watch out, they just might be joining the president in history’s dustbin by 2018.

It is still early enough, however, to believe that a Pence presidency just may come to pass fairly soon. While his administration probably would be even more conservative than Trump’s, it also could be more rational, manageable, and fundamentally sensible. Pence is no dunce; he can read news and polls and will want to have a successful presidency. Therefore he seems highly unlikely to go crazy.

A lot of Democrat liberals worry that he is too conservative. That may be right. But he is sane and a realist. And when he finally can stop pulling his forelock in the Oval Office and actually get behind the desk, we will likely see someone who can work compromises with the Congress and across the aisle.

Therefore, the efforts to thwart Trump’s erratic behavior should at this point be aimed at slowing everything down until he is gone, and then get to work with Pence to work out a sane agenda to get things back on track before the midterm elections!