WASHINGTON _ Donald Trump wasn't the first to attack an independent prosecutor's investigation of a sitting U.S. president as "corrupt" and "a witch hunt."
Democratic political strategist Paul Begala used the words 20 years ago to condemn Kenneth Starr's investigation of Bill Clinton, just weeks after the then-president's affair with Monica Lewinsky was revealed.
Whether confronted by a former aide's tell-all book or a federal investigation, Trump keeps returning to the defense strategy deployed by the political family he defeated to win the presidency: the Clinton White House model of deny, attack and polarize.
Trump this month dismissed Omarosa Manigault Newman as a "crazed, crying lowlife" after her unflattering insider account of his administration, just as anonymous Clinton allies initially portrayed Lewinsky as an unstable stalker obsessed with the president.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani blasted the president's former fixer, Michael Cohen, as a "liar" and "scoundrel" after Cohen disclosed he had taped conversations with the president. On Stormy Daniels, who claims Trump paid her off to conceal a sexual affair, Giuliani said, "I'm sorry. I don't respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman or a woman of substance."
The substance of the scandals surrounding the two White Houses differ, as do their styles. Trump publicly vents, often on Twitter, against special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation. Clinton mostly stood aside while two closely aligned political strategists _ Begala and James Carville _ became Starr's loudest public antagonists, their criticisms amplified by a network of surrogates.
But the linchpin of the strategy is the same. Success or failure hinges on vilifying witnesses and investigators and relentlessly framing the matter as a purely partisan fight.
