Follow The Stink

Once upon a time, a film was made about the disintegration of the Nixon White House. All The President's Men was written by the exemplar of screenwriters, William Goldman. One of the shadowy figures featured in this whodunit is the informer referred to as Deep Throat. In 2005, the true identity of the man played by Hal Holbrook in the film was revealed: Mark Felt, the associate director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. From the darkened corners of a Washington D.C. parking garage, he told reporter Bob Woodward to "follow the money." Hard to say through the haze of history if these were the actual words spoken by Mark Felt, who was given the nickname of a porn film from the seventies, or if those were the words created for the screenplay by Mister Goldman, but it turns out they were good advice.
By connecting payments made from the Committee to Re-Elect the President, CREEP to its friends, Woodward and his partner Carl Bernstein were able to connect burglars caught at the Watergate Hotel to the front steps of the White House. Toss into that investigation a heaping help of Washington-type scurrilous activity among those with spots closest to the President and you've got the one and only case of a President of the United States resigning from office.
So what have we learned?
Follow the money.
There is an awful lot of that (money) in Washington these days. Sadly, not as much of it is being paid out to the government employees who were furloughed or asked to work for free since things were shut down for more than a month. But there is a lot of it around. Some of it could be found in the metaphorical pockets of one Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to our current "President." Mister Stone was arrested Friday morning on seven counts including obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements and witness tampering. This is a guy who has a long list of campaign "advising" that includes the current resident of the White House and (wait for it) Richard Nixon. This brings the total number of current administration officials and hangers-on indicted to thirty-seven. When the smoke cleared and Nixon's helicopter took off from the South Lawn, there were forty from the Nixon administration. 
Follow the history.