A vice-presidential scandal, rebuilt from the record.
Bag Man revisits the federal bribery case against Spiro Agnew with archival material, prosecutor interviews, and tightly paced narration. It treats the scandal less as trivia than as a stress test for presidential power, prosecutorial nerve, and public memory.
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Bag Man is a reported political history series about Spiro Agnew, the vice president whose criminal investigation and resignation unfolded beside a president’s own crisis and then slipped from the center of public memory. It starts with a stark premise and keeps narrowing the frame. A sitting vice president faced allegations of bribery and extortion. Federal prosecutors pursued the case. The White House looked for pressure points. The country, already watching Nixon, was about to learn that the crisis reached lower and higher than many people understood. The series works through the story in careful increments, using archival broadcasts, taped political moments, and interviews with federal prosecutors to show how the case actually moved. It is not just a scandal recap. It is a study of leverage. Agnew’s lawyers fought subpoenas and publicity. Prosecutors weighed evidence, timing, and the danger of chaos. Nixon and Agnew’s relationship deteriorated as both men tried to protect themselves, and the show keeps returning to the strange fact that the president and vice president were, in different ways, both under criminal clouds at once. Bag Man is especially strong when it slows down around procedural details that sound dry until they become decisive: a locked courtroom, a resignation letter, a statement of crimes, a plea deal, an IRS trail, a witness with a story about cash. The narration has momentum without turning cartoonish. It lets the historical record carry the shock. Bonus material connects the Agnew case to later indictments and asks former prosecutors how they read criminal charges against Trump as a former president and presidential candidate. The show suits listeners who want politics with receipts, not just outrage. It also rewards anyone interested in how institutions behave when the person being investigated is not outside power, but inside it.
Made for: For listeners who follow American politics, legal history, political reporting, and stories about how institutions respond under pressure. It especially suits people who like archival narrative with a clear investigative spine.
What sets it apart: Bag Man stands apart by making the Agnew case feel operational rather than ornamental: who knew what, who pressured whom, and which procedural moves changed the outcome. The show uses prosecutor interviews and archival material to turn the scandal into a live question about power.
Is it possible for an American Vice President to carry out a criminal enterprise inside the White House and have nobody remember? To have one of the most brazen political bribery scandals in American history play out before the country while nobody’s paying attention? In her first original podcast, MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow goes back 45 years to dig into a story that got overshadowed in its day. There’s intrigue. Corruption. Envelopes of cash delivered to the White House. It’s a story that’s not well known, but it probably should be. Especially today. Bag Man. A Rachel Mad...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Bag Man turns the Agnew investigation into a clear, evidence-rich account of corruption, prosecutorial resolve, and political power under strain.
Bag Man reconstructs the criminal investigation of Vice President Spiro Agnew as a serialized account of power under pressure. Rachel Maddow combines archival broadcasts, Oval Office recordings, courtroom detail, and interviews with the federal prosecutors who brought the case,…
A locked courtroom turns a vice-presidential downfall into the cliffhanger your civics class forgot.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A history lesson that feels uncomfortably current, and earns that feeling.
The episode uses Spiro Agnew's downfall to look at what happens when criminal justice meets political power. Rachel Maddow, producer Mike Yarvitz, and three former federal prosecutors keep that comparison grounded, so it feels argued rather than simply drawn for effect.
A tight account of how a scandal turns into a negotiation, then into a national reckoning.
This episode treats Spiro Agnew's public fall as a chain of events, moving from scandal to bargaining to a national broadcast. It keeps its footing in the October 15, 1973 special report and the hard-negotiated plea deal, with archival tape and interview material doing real work…
A sealed courtroom, a hidden deal, and a resignation that lands like a trapdoor.
A courtroom hearing that starts with subpoenas slowly turns into something much bigger, and the episode keeps tightening that pressure until the resignation lands with real weight.
A political history story that puts Carl Albert at the center of the crisis.
Bag Man follows the Watergate crisis through Carl Albert, the Democratic House speaker from Oklahoma, who was small in stature but ended up right in the middle of the mess.
A pressure campaign built from old favors and taped power moves.
The episode tracks the Nixon White House as it tries to pressure the George Bell investigation by leaning on a U.S. attorney, Senator Glenn Bell, and the debt left by helping Glenn Bell get elected.
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Dan Carlin's solo essays connecting executive power, historical collapse, and American democracy.
Sharp political debate with policy detail and real disagreement.
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Rachel Maddow and producer Mike Yarvitz speak with Tim Baker, Barney Skolnick, and Ron Liebman, the former federal prosecutors who brought charges against Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973.
The episode opens on the shock of Spiro Agnew’s public fall.
A 2 p.m.
Carl Albert is the small man suddenly holding a large piece of American power.
Nixon and Agnew are trying to contain an investigation that could reach the vice president.