The historical significance of Bag Man goes far beyond the actual crime itself. What started as an unremarkable—and common, in Baltimore County at least—extortion scheme grows into a legal tug-of-war that would bring down a sitting vice-president and shape the way crime and punishment are viewed for the chief executive of the United States. It also left a legacy of deep distrust in politicians and government institutions, the importance of which cannot be overstated. A government of, by, and for the people cannot function when “the people” do not trust the officials elected to administer it.

While some level of skepticism of elected officials is healthy for a democracy—blind obedience is a recipe for authoritarianism—by the early 1970s, Americans still had reasonable faith that politicians, rather than serving themselves, were serving America. While civil rights and Vietnam War protests shook much of that faith, the anger and distrust were concentrated within the ranks of the young—the counterculture. Both Watergate and the Agnew extortion racket challenged the allegiance of older, more traditional Americans, who derided the protestors as “un-American.” Both Nixon and Agnew rallied support by repeatedly asserting their innocence in the face of a supposedly partisan witch hunt.