Michael: Everyone thinks Watergate was the biggest, most brazen scandal of the Nixon years. It wasn't. The real story involves cash-stuffed envelopes, a gangster-style shakedown in the White House, and a cover-up that makes Watergate look almost quaint. Kevin: Bigger than Watergate? Come on, that's the gold standard of political scandal. That's like saying you found a band more influential than The Beatles. What could possibly top it? Michael: It’s all laid out in the book Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House by Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz. What's fascinating is that this book grew out of their award-winning podcast. They were driven to tell this story because they saw Agnew’s tactics—attacking the press, smearing prosecutors—as a direct blueprint for modern political fights, making this forgotten history startlingly relevant. Kevin: Huh. So it's a history lesson that's not really history. I'm intrigued. Where does a story like this even begin? Michael: It begins with the sheer, almost cartoonish audacity of the crime itself. We're not talking about complex financial instruments or shadowy shell corporations. We're talking about cold, hard cash.

Kevin: Okay, so when you say cash, what do you mean? Are we talking about brown paper bags slid under a table in a dark alley? Michael: Almost. We're talking about plain white envelopes, stuffed with thousands of dollars, being hand-delivered to Spiro Agnew. Not just when he was a county executive, not just when he was the Governor of Maryland, but when he was the sitting Vice President of the United States. In his office. In the White House complex. Kevin: Wait, are you seriously telling me the Vice President was taking cash bribes in the White House? That sounds like a bad mob movie, not American government. Michael: It's exactly what was happening. The book tells the incredible story of an engineer named Lester Matz. Matz was trying to get state contracts in Maryland and realized the whole system was rigged. To get work, you had to pay. So when Agnew ran for governor, Matz supported him. Kevin: And I'm guessing Agnew remembered his friend after he won. Michael: Oh, he did. Agnew, now governor, calls Matz into his office and essentially asks him to create a price list for corruption. He has Matz draw up a chart detailing how much engineering firms could afford to kick back on contracts of different sizes. It came out to about 3-5% of the contract's value, paid in cash. Kevin: He had a consultant draw up a business plan for his bribery scheme! The nerve. Michael: Precisely. And it became the system. If you wanted a state contract, you paid the toll. But the most stunning part is that it didn't stop when Agnew went to Washington. Matz describes visiting Agnew in his office in the Old Executive Office Building, right next to the White House. He walks in with an envelope stuffed with $10,000 in cash. Kevin: And Agnew's reaction? Is there some elaborate, coded exchange? Michael: Not at all. Matz hands him the envelope. Agnew takes it, doesn't say a word, opens his desk drawer, puts the cash inside, and closes it. As if he were filing a memo. It was just another Tuesday at the office. This happened multiple times. Kevin: That's what's so shocking. The banality of it. It wasn't some dark, hidden secret. It was just business as usual, conducted right under the presidential seal. How did they get away with it for so long? Were these guys just inherently corrupt? Michael: The book makes a really interesting point here. One of the prosecutors, Ron Liebman, said these businessmen were "otherwise decent" people who felt trapped. The system was so pervasively corrupt in Maryland at the time that it was just the cost of doing business. As Liebman put it, "If you don’t pay, you don’t get the work. It doesn’t matter that you’re the guy who can design the Chesapeake Bay Bridge better than anyone else." Kevin: So it was a culture of corruption that he just perfected and then imported to the nation's capital. Michael: Exactly. He was a "little hustler out of Baltimore County," as one politician described him, who made it all the way to the White House without ever changing his methods. And for a while, it seemed like he was untouchable. Kevin: But obviously, he wasn't. What changed? Michael: A few young, idealistic federal prosecutors in Baltimore started looking into local corruption, completely unrelated to Agnew. They were just following the money. And the trail of cash they uncovered led them somewhere they never, ever expected.

Michael: As these prosecutors—guys named Barney Skolnik, Tim Baker, and Ron Liebman—started issuing subpoenas and digging into financial records, they noticed these strange "bonus" checks at engineering firms. The money would be paid out to an executive, who would then withdraw it in cash and give it right back to the company owner. Kevin: A classic money-laundering scheme to create a slush fund for bribes. Michael: You got it. And as they squeezed the people involved, a name kept bubbling up. First, it was just whispers. Then, one of the key witnesses, Lester Matz, finally confesses through his lawyer. He says he's been paying off Agnew for years, and that the payments continued even after he became Vice President. Kevin: I can't imagine what that moment must have been like for those prosecutors. You think you're investigating local graft, and suddenly you've got the second most powerful man in the country in your sights. Michael: They said they felt like they had a "tiger by the tail." They knew they had to report it up the chain of command to the Attorney General, Elliot Richardson. But they also knew that the moment they did, they could lose control of the case. It could be shut down for "political reasons." Kevin: And this is all happening while Watergate is exploding. The pressure must have been immense. Michael: Unbelievable. But what they didn't know was that Agnew and the White House were already working to kill the investigation. The book reveals this through the White House tapes. It's chilling. Agnew goes directly to President Nixon. Kevin: What did Nixon do? Did he tell him to cooperate? Michael: Quite the opposite. There's a recording of Nixon and Agnew in the Oval Office. Nixon asks about the U.S. Attorney in charge, a man named George Beall. He asks, "Is he a good boy?" Meaning, is he loyal to us? Will he do what he's told? Kevin: Wow. Not "is he a good prosecutor," but "is he a good boy." That says everything. Michael: It gets worse. They discuss a key witness, Lester Matz, and Nixon asks, "Well, can we destroy him?" They then hatch a plan to pressure George Beall by going through his brother, who was a Republican senator. And they decide who should deliver the message. Kevin: Who did they pick to be the messenger in this obstruction plot? Michael: The Chairman of the Republican National Committee at the time: a man named George H. W. Bush. Kevin: A future president was involved in trying to shut down a federal investigation into the Vice President? That's a bombshell. Michael: The book lays it out. Bush was tasked by Nixon's chief of staff, Al Haig, to deliver the message to Senator Beall, who then relayed the pressure to his brother, the prosecutor. It was a full-blown, top-down conspiracy to obstruct justice. Kevin: That is absolutely staggering. So while the whole world is watching the Watergate hearings, Nixon is personally directing a cover-up for his Vice President. The hypocrisy is off the charts. Did the prosecutors know any of this was happening? Michael: They had no idea. And this is one of the most heroic parts of the story. Their boss, George Beall, was getting immense pressure from his own brother and from the White House, but he never once let it filter down to his team. He completely shielded them. He took the heat and let them do their jobs. He refused to buckle. Kevin: That's incredible. So one man's integrity basically saved the entire investigation from being buried by the President of the United States. Michael: It's a testament to the idea that individuals matter. But even with Beall's protection, the fight was far from over. Agnew decided to take his case public, and in doing so, he wrote the playbook for every corrupt politician who would come after him.

Kevin: So what does Agnew do? He can't deny the evidence, the White House isn't fully protecting him anymore. What's his move? Michael: He goes on the attack. He holds a press conference and declares, "I have no intention to be skewered in this fashion." He claims the investigation is a "witch hunt" led by biased prosecutors. He attacks the Justice Department for "leaks." He demonizes the press. He tells his supporters that he's the victim, a "big trophy" that the DOJ wants to hang on its wall to distract from Watergate. Kevin: That sounds... eerily familiar. Michael: That's the core point Maddow and Yarvitz make. This is the Agnew Playbook. Don't defend yourself on the facts. Instead, attack the investigators, attack the institutions, and attack the media. Convince your base that the system itself is corrupt and you're the one being unfairly targeted. Kevin: And it almost worked. He had a lot of support from Republicans who thought he was being framed. But ultimately, the evidence was just too much, right? Michael: It was. His legal team tried one last Hail Mary. They argued that a sitting Vice President was constitutionally immune from indictment. You'd have to impeach him first. Kevin: Which is a political process, not a legal one. He thought he'd have better odds with his political allies in Congress. Michael: Exactly. But this is where the story takes its most ironic, and perhaps most damaging, turn. To counter Agnew's argument, the Justice Department's own Office of Legal Counsel had to write a formal memo. And in that memo, they made a fateful distinction. Kevin: What was the distinction? Michael: They argued that while the Vice President's job is important, it's not essential to the day-to-day running of the country. The nation could survive a VP being indicted. But the President? The President's job is unique and all-encompassing. To indict a sitting President, they argued, would "hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus." Therefore, a sitting President cannot be indicted. Kevin: Oh my god. So in their effort to take down Agnew, they created the very legal argument that would shield future presidents? Michael: Precisely. The successful prosecution of a corrupt Vice President led directly to the official DOJ policy that a sitting President is above the law, a policy that has shaped American history ever since, right up to the Mueller report. It's the ultimate unintended consequence. Kevin: That's an absolutely mind-bending legacy. He gets caught for simple, grubby bribery, and the fallout creates this massive constitutional shield. So in the end, he resigns, pleads "no contest" to tax evasion, and avoids jail time. Michael: He does. The prosecutors were furious. They believed he should have gone to jail. But Attorney General Richardson made the call that for the good of the country, with Nixon teetering, they just needed Agnew out of the line of succession. It was a deal made in the name of national stability.

Michael: When you step back, the story of Spiro Agnew isn't just about one corrupt politician. It's a profound story about the fragility of the rule of law. It shows how a few determined, principled people—like those young Baltimore prosecutors—can successfully hold immense power to account, even when the President himself is against them. Kevin: But it's also a cautionary tale. It shows how the tactics of fighting back—of attacking the truth-tellers and undermining our institutions—can poison our politics for decades to come. The Agnew Playbook is still very much in use. Michael: It is. And it leaves you with this deep appreciation for the quiet, unglamorous work of public servants who just follow the facts. The ones who, when faced with immense pressure, don't ask "is he a good boy?" but "what does the evidence say?" Kevin: It really makes you wonder, doesn't it? If those prosecutors hadn't been so stubborn, so committed to the facts, a man who was actively running a criminal racket from his office would have been next in line for the presidency during the country's biggest constitutional crisis. What does that say about the people we rely on to protect our institutions? Michael: A question worth pondering. This is Aibrary, signing off.