Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. Returning to the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI, he instructed Haldeman: "You call them in. [129] From 1968 to 1970, Hughes withdrew nearly half a million dollars from the Texas National Bank of Commerce for contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, including presidential candidates Humphrey and Nixon. After the Post revealed that H.R. A forceful presidential campaign therefore seemed essential to the president and some of his key advisers. Dean mentioned this observation while testifying to the Senate Committee on Watergate, exposing the thread of what were taped conversations that would unravel the fabric of the conspiracy. [5] Witnesses testified that the president had approved plans to cover up administration involvement in the break-in, and that there was a voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office. A few days later, Marcia Kramer, a veteran crime reporter of the New York Daily News, tracked Mitchell to the Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, and described Mitchell as "a beaten woman" with visible bruises.
First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure.

"[62][63] He needed to allow Bork to appoint a new special prosecutor; Bork chose Leon Jaworski to continue the investigation. Nixon noted that any audio pertinent to national security information could be redacted from the released tapes. On August 5, 1974, the White House released a previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972. Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession. [134] The following day responding to a question upon "the vital importance of future United States-Australia relations", Whitlam parried that the usage of the word 'Watergate' was not his. The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. [28] The burglars' sentry across the street, Alfred Baldwin, was distracted watching TV and failed to observe the arrival of the police car in front of the hotel. [57] Butterfield said he was reluctant to answer, but finally admitted there was a new system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and others, as well as Nixon's private office in the Old Executive Office Building. Initially, Nixon's organization and the White House quickly went to work to cover up the crime and any evidence that might have damaged the president and his reelection. Good. [40][41] On August 1, a $25,000 (approximately $153,000 in 2019 dollars) cashier's check was found to have been deposited in the US and Mexican bank accounts of one of the Watergate burglars, Bernard Barker. "[70] This newspaper continued that, while the transcripts may not have revealed an indictable offense, they showed Nixon contemptuous of the United States, its institutions, and its people. "A New Explanation of Watergate", by J. Anthony Lukas, This page was last edited on 19 October 2020, at 14:55. On Friday, July 13, during a preliminary interview, deputy minority counsel Donald Sanders asked White House assistant Alexander Butterfield if there was any type of recording system in the White House. "[66] The Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott said the transcripts revealed a "deplorable, disgusting, shabby, and immoral" performance on the part of the President and his former aides. He is profane. After the five perpetrators were arrested, the press and the U.S. Justice Departmentconnected the cash foun… His lawyers argued that the president’s executive privilege allowed him to keep the tapes to himself, but Judge Sirica, the Senate committee and an independent special prosecutor named Archibald Cox were all determined to obtain them.
It was not immediately clear that the burglars were connected to the president, though suspicions were raised when detectives found copies of the reelection committee’s White House phone number among the burglars’ belongings. [46][1], After it was learned that one of the convicted burglars wrote to Judge Sirica alleging a high-level cover-up, the media shifted its focus. At the time, Oliver was working as the executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairmen. Haig was explaining what he and Nixon's staff thought were Nixon's only options. [68], The editors of The Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that had supported Nixon, wrote, "He is humorless to the point of being inhumane. The press ran photos of the set-up, showing that it was unlikely for Woods to answer the phone while keeping her foot on the pedal. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continuous attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C. Watergate Office Building. It later came to light that Nixon was not being truthful. Based on a previous interview in 1968,[119] he believed that Frost would be an easy interviewer and was taken aback by Frost's incisive questions.

[114], On July 29, 2011, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted Kutler's request, saying historical interests trumped privacy, especially considering that Nixon and other key figures were deceased, and most of the surviving figures had testified under oath, have been written about, or were interviewed.

His legal team favored releasing the tapes unedited, while Press Secretary Ron Ziegler preferred using an edited version where "expletive deleted" would replace the raw material. The contents of this tape persuaded Nixon's own lawyers, Fred Buzhardt and James St. Clair, that "the President had lied to the nation, to his closest aides, and to his own lawyers—for more than two years".

Congress passed legislation that changed campaign financing, to amend the Freedom of Information Act, as well as to require financial disclosures by key government officials (via the Ethics in Government Act). Updates? Butterfield's revelation of the taping system transformed the Watergate investigation. Early in 1974, the cover-up and efforts to impede the Watergate investigation began to unravel. It was during this meeting that Dean felt that he was being recorded.