As the country braces for Donald Trump’s looming return to the White House – and the potential for the incoming president to unleash vengeance on his perceived enemies – a New York attorney who found himself on Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” is sounding the alarm for critics of the incoming president.
Trump has for months vowed to use the power of the federal government to go after political opponents, including prosecutors and certain members of the House Committee on January 6. And his selection of former GOP staffer and MAGA loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI is reportedly assembling an “enemies list.”
It’s an all too familiar scenario, according to Sid Davidoff, who was a bar owner and former administrative assistant to New York City Mayor John Lindsey during the Watergate hearings in 1973 when he was stunned to wind up as No. 12 on Nixon’s “enemies list.”
“Keep in mind, I am 32 years old at the time, the son of a candy store owner from Queens. And here I am on the enemies list of the president of the United States. It was surreal,” Davidoff wrote in an op-ed piece for MSNBC on Wednesday.
Davidoff initially “had a blast” being thrust in the national spotlight – even considering it to be a “merit of honor” and hosting a “enemies ball” at the bar he owned.
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But things quickly took a dark turn – and Davidoff, a founding partner of the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, warns it could be worse for anybody in our modern-day political landscape who lands on Trump’s list.
“Suddenly, the IRS starts investigating me, claiming I owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes in FICA for employee fees,” he wrote. “Tack on some late fees and penalties and before you knew it, they were claiming I owed close to a million dollars.”
The state of New York then accused him of embezzlement by the state’s attorney general, who worked closely with the Republican governor at the time, Davidoff told readers.
“My friends in the attorney general’s office told me they had no choice,” he wrote. “Federal agents showed up at the apartment building of the young woman I was dating at the time. They questioned her doormen and wanted to know about my comings and goings.”
The fallout was “difficult to deal with,” Davidoff recalled: "The force of government coming after an individual like that is not a fun place to be."
An indictment against him was eventually dismissed and Davidoff wrote in his op-ed that he went on to “live a very full and positive life.”
“Still, I wouldn’t wish that kind of trouble on anybody,” he added. “And I’m not sure anyone who finds themselves on Trump’s list will feel as lucky as I do, this many years on.”
