Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House

As the depth and breadth of Agnew’s crimes emerge, it becomes apparent that Agnew—along with Anderson and much of Baltimore County’s government—has gotten so comfortable with the influx of cash and his years of impunity, that he believes his relatively pedestrian scheme is above detection. What the prosecutors find with some rudimentary deduction, however, is a paper trail and list of witnesses long enough to build a substantial case against the vice president. Agnew’s carelessness suggests that his addiction to the white envelopes of cash clouds all judgment. That he continues accepting extortion money well into his tenure as vice president reflects a brash sense of entitlement that he is above the law. The hypocrisy is that he is breaking the law all while being an integral part of Nixon’s “law and order” legislative policy platform. A clear disconnect exists between his rhetoric and his deeds, exposing an implicit racism. Crime, to Agnew, is aggrieved Black residents engaged in sometimes violent protests for equality. By contrast, he believes a politician taking bribes is just business as usual. Agnew’s conception of crime happens in underfunded urban neighborhoods, not in fancy offices between well-dressed professionals. In fact, Agnew, Nixon’s point man on urban affairs, once claimed, “If you’ve seen one slum, you’ve seen them all” (“Spiro T. Agnew, Ex-Vice President, Dies at 77,” New York Times. September 18, 1996). He condescends toward Black leaders, who he claims cannot “control” their communities in the aftermath of the assassination of one of their most important and beloved icons. Yet Agnew simultaneously extorts local businesses for personal profit.

A striking similarity between past and present is the absolute necessity of dedicated civil servants who do their sworn duty without bowing to political pressure. Beall and his team of investigators know that, in Agnew, they have a “tiger by the tail” (62), but they are undeterred. They have an unlikely ally in Elliot Richardson, another hero of the story who, despite being Nixon’s hand-picked attorney general, elects to pursue the case against Agnew—while simultaneously investigating Nixon, a legal one-two punch unprecedented in recent U.S. history. Beall, Richardson, Skolnik, Liebman, and Baker are the 1970s equivalent of officials like Georgia Secretary of State, Speaker of the Arizona House, and various poll workers, who in 2020 stood up to intimidation and faithfully executed their duties despite vociferous and unproven allegations of election fraud. The common theme between these events separated by half a century is moral courage in the face of powerful opposition. The consequences of indicting both a president and a vice president are not lost on Beall and his team, nor on Richardson. But all of these civil servants recognize their higher duty to a country and the principles of its founding document which supersede the power and prestige of any single person or office.