Bag Man
Rachel Maddow, Michael Yarvitz
40 min
9 Key Points
4.3 RateWhat's inside?
Dive into the thrilling account of a notorious political scandal, uncovering the audacious crimes and shocking cover-up orchestrated by a White House official.
You'll learn
1. What's the dirt on the Spiro Agnew scandal?2. How does the justice system handle political corruption?3. Why is investigative journalism crucial for truth?4. A quick look at political corruption in US history.5. What happens when a vice president resigns?6. How do political scandals shake public trust?Key points
01The Vice President’s Secret Side Hustle
Political history often remembers the loud, catastrophic scandals that bring down presidencies, but rarely do we look at the quiet, methodical corruption that operates in the shadows. To truly understand the sheer audacity of Spiro Agnew, we have to travel back to a time when he was widely considered the moral compass of the conservative movement. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Agnew built a formidable public persona as the ultimate "law and order" politician. He was the man who stood at podiums across the country, delivering fiery, sharply worded speeches that condemned anti-war protestors, criticized the liberal media, and demanded a return to traditional American values. His booming voice and perfectly tailored suits projected an image of absolute, unshakeable integrity. Millions of Americans looked at him and saw a fearless truth-teller who was entirely above the messy, compromised world of traditional politics. Yet, as Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz masterfully reveal in Bag Man, the man preaching morality on national television was quietly running one of the most brazen extortion rings in American political history. The story does not begin in the grand halls of Washington, D.C., but rather in the highly transactional world of Maryland state politics. Long before he was tapped to be Richard Nixon's running mate, Agnew served as the Baltimore County Executive and later as the Governor of Maryland. In these roles, he possessed the ultimate power over state construction contracts. If an engineering firm, an architectural company, or a paving contractor wanted to do business with the state of Maryland, they quickly learned that there was a hidden, unspoken cost of doing business. It was not a complex, highly sophisticated offshore money-laundering operation. It was far more straightforward and far more crude. Agnew had established a rigid system where contractors were expected to kick back exactly five percent of the value of any state contract they were awarded. This was not considered a voluntary campaign contribution or a polite suggestion; it was an absolute requirement for economic survival in Maryland. The system was so deeply entrenched that the contractors simply factored the five percent bribe into their overhead costs. Two men in particular, Lester Matz and Jerry Wolff, found themselves caught in this web. Both were ambitious engineers who had built successful firms, but they understood that their success relied entirely on staying in Agnew's good graces. They became the reluctant "bag men," the middlemen tasked with withdrawing large sums of untraceable cash, stuffing it into plain white envelopes, and hand-delivering it to Agnew's associates. What makes this story truly breathtaking is not just that Agnew took bribes as a county executive or a governor. Corruption at the local level, while illegal, was unfortunately not entirely uncommon in that era. The true shock comes from the fact that when Richard Nixon elevated Agnew to the vice presidency in 1968, Agnew did not dismantle his extortion ring. He did not decide that being the second most powerful man in the free world required a higher standard of ethical behavior. Instead, he simply moved the operation down Interstate 95 and right into the executive branch of the federal government. He continued to demand his five percent cut from the Maryland contractors, insisting that he still held enough sway over state politics to make or break their businesses. The juxtaposition of Agnew's two lives is almost difficult to comprehend. On any given Tuesday, he might stand before a massive crowd in the Midwest, reading a speech penned by brilliant conservative writers like Pat Buchanan or William Safire, railing against the moral decay of the nation and the criminal elements destroying American cities. Then, on a Wednesday afternoon, he would retreat to his private office, close the door, and casually accept a fat envelope of illegal cash from a nervous contractor. He viewed the money not as a grand criminal enterprise, but almost as a standard entitlement, a fringe benefit of his political power. He complained about the high cost of living in Washington, the expenses of maintaining a lifestyle suitable for a vice president, and justified the bribes as a necessary supplement to his government salary. For years, this dual existence worked flawlessly. Agnew was insulated by his immense power, his loyal political base, and the sheer improbability of his crimes. No one in the press or the public could fathom that a sitting vice president would be shaking down local engineers for envelopes of cash while simultaneously leading a national crusade for law and order. He operated with total impunity, entirely confident that the protective bubble of the White House would shield him forever. But as the book so brilliantly details, arrogance often breeds carelessness. Agnew had left a long, paper trail of disgruntled contractors and quiet resentments back in Maryland. He believed he had left his past behind him, but he had merely set the stage for a collision course with a group of young, relentless investigators who were about to stumble onto the political crime of the century.
02Three Young Prosecutors on the Hunt
Every great political thriller requires a relentless force of justice, and in Bag Man, that force comes in the unexpected form of an obscure United States Attorney's office in Baltimore. In the early 1970s, the political landscape of Maryland was notoriously swampy, filled with backroom deals, patronage, and a long history of politicians treating the public treasury as their personal bank account. Enter George Beall, the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. Beall was a fascinating figure for this specific moment in history. He was a moderate Republican, appointed directly by the Nixon administration, and he came from a prominent Maryland political family. His brother was a sitting Republican senator. By all traditional rules of political survival, Beall should have been a loyal foot soldier for the Republican establishment, careful not to rock the boat or embarrass the administration that gave him his job. Instead, Beall possessed a stubborn, unyielding commitment to the law that transcended party loyalty. He looked around his jurisdiction and realized that the rampant corruption in Maryland contracting had been ignored for far too long. To tackle this massive undertaking, he assembled a team of three exceptionally bright, aggressively idealistic young federal prosecutors: Barney Skolnik, Tim Baker, and Ron Liebman. These three men were the absolute antithesis of the polished, calculating politicians they would soon be investigating. They were young lawyers in their late twenties and early thirties, driven by a pure, almost naïve belief in the absolute equality of the justice system. They worked out of cramped, unglamorous offices, fueled by bad coffee, late-night diner food, and an obsessive desire to follow the evidence wherever it led. When this investigation began, Spiro Agnew was not even on their radar. The young prosecutors did not set out to take down the Vice President of the United States. Their initial target was the mundane, everyday corruption taking place in Baltimore County. They started by issuing a flurry of subpoenas to local engineering and architectural firms, demanding access to their financial records, tax returns, and bank statements. The strategy was classic, grind-it-out investigative work. They were looking for the financial anomalies, the sudden large cash withdrawals, the doctored books that would indicate illegal payments were being made to local officials. The breakthrough came through immense psychological pressure and brilliant legal maneuvering. The prosecutors knew that the contractors paying the bribes were just as guilty under the law as the politicians receiving them. They began bringing these businessmen into small, windowless interrogation rooms, confronting them with irrefutable evidence of financial irregularities, and offering them a stark choice: cooperate and tell the truth about who you are paying off, or face devastating federal indictments that will ruin your business and send you to federal prison. It was a classic prisoner's dilemma, and slowly but surely, the dam began to break. First, the lower-level figures began to talk, pointing fingers at county executives and state officials. But as Skolnik, Baker, and Liebman pulled on the threads of the conspiracy, the unraveling led them higher and higher up the political food chain. The turning point arrived when they finally cornered Lester Matz and Jerry Wolff. These men had been paying the five percent kickbacks for years, and they were exhausted by the constant extortion. When faced with the full weight of the federal government, they decided it was time to save themselves. They sat across from the young prosecutors and began outlining the entire corrupt system. They detailed the meetings, the cash withdrawals, and the specific percentages required to win state contracts. And then came the moment that changed American history. The contractors calmly explained that the man at the very top of this pyramid, the man who had orchestrated the system and who was still collecting the envelopes of cash, was none other than Spiro T. Agnew. The revelation hit the small U.S. Attorney's office like a thunderclap. The prosecutors were stunned into silence. This was no longer just a local corruption case; this was a direct assault on the executive branch of the United States government. They were staring at evidence that the sitting Vice President was an active, unrepentant felon. The emotional weight of this discovery cannot be overstated. Skolnik, Baker, and Liebman were acutely aware of the danger they had just stepped into. They were young men taking aim at one of the most powerful, vindictive politicians in the country. They knew that Agnew had the machinery of the White House, the Justice Department, and a fiercely loyal public following at his disposal. They also knew that their boss, George Beall, was a Republican who would face unimaginable pressure from his own party to quietly bury the investigation. Yet, in a testament to their integrity, the team never hesitated. They sat in their cramped office, looked at the explosive evidence before them, and made a collective decision to push forward. They would treat the Vice President of the United States exactly like any other corrupt official in Baltimore. The hunt was officially on, and the young prosecutors were about to initiate a constitutional earthquake.
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03The Envelopes of Cash in the Basement
04A Desperate Counterattack from the Top
05The Constitutional Nightmare Unfolds
06Tension Sparks Between the President and Vice President
07The Ultimate Deal to Save the Nation
08Conclusion
About Rachel Maddow, Michael Yarvitz
Rachel Maddow is an American television host, political commentator, and author, best known for her show "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC. Michael Yarvitz is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning television producer and journalist, known for his work on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and "Bag Man" podcast.
