Politics & Power Quote by Fred F. Fielding

There is a lawyerly kind of outrage in Fielding's phrasing: not the soaring moral condemnation of a politician, but the clipped disbelief of someone who knows exactly how the machinery is supposed to work. The line starts with a populist pivot - "you did not have to be well versed in politics" - which lowers the bar for judgment on purpose. Fielding isn't appealing to ideology; he's arguing that the misconduct was so blatant it offended common sense. That move is strategic: it widens the jury of the offended from insiders to any citizen who can recognize a bad smell.

The real indictment is institutional. "It is the counsel's job to stop them" frames legal counsel as a gatekeeper, not a hired shield. In a culture that often treats lawyers as fixers, Fielding insists on a professional ethic: the lawyer as brake pedal. The subtext is a betrayal of role, not just a bad decision. Someone tasked with restraint became an accessory to escalation.

Then comes the word that carries the most historical weight: "coverup". It's a term with Watergate residue, shorthand for the secondary crime that often dwarfs the original sin. Fielding's syntax - "instead the coverup was created" - is almost passive, as if the coverup assembled itself. That softens the accusation while sharpening it: even without naming names, responsibility hangs in the air. Contextually, it evokes executive-branch scandal logic: when wrongdoing is obvious, the story becomes less about the act and more about the panic, loyalty, and self-protection that convert a misstep into a systemic failure.