Bag Man

Hardcover

2021 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee

The knockdown, drag-out, untold story of the other scandal that rocked Nixons White House, and reset the rules for crooked presidents to come – with new reporting that expands on Rachel Maddows Peabody Award-nominated podcast

Is it possible for a sitting vice president to direct a vast criminal enterprise within the halls of the White House? To have one of the most brazen corruption scandals in American history play out while nobodys paying attention? And for that scandal to be all but forgotten decades later?

The year was 1973, and Spiro T. Agnew, the former governor of Maryland, was Richard Nixons second-in-command. Long on firebrand rhetoric and short on political experience, Agnew had carried out a bribery and extortion ring in office for years, whenat the height of Watergatethree young federal prosecutors discovered his crimes and launched a mission to take him down before it was too late, before Nixons impending downfall elevated Agnew to the presidency. The self-described counterpuncher vice president did everything he could to bury their investigation: dismissing it as a witch hunt, riling up his partisan base, making the press the enemy, and, with a crumbling circle of loyalists, scheming to obstruct justice in order to survive.

In this blockbuster account, Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz detail the investigation that exposed Agnews crimes, the attempts at a cover-upwhich involved future president George H. W. Bushand the backroom bargain that forced Agnews resignation but also spared him years in federal prison. Based on the award-winning hit podcast, Bag Man expands and deepens the story of Spiro Agnews scandal and its lasting influence on our politics, our media, and our understanding of what it takes to confront a criminal in the White House.