Continue reading. The couple sued and eventually reached an undisclosed settlement. Mr. Trump asked Comey to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation by saying so to the public. It's an unpleasant place. . 1976); AND IMPEACHMENT OF RICHARD NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY (WASHINGTON, D.C: GOV. WATERGATE: In 1972, the underlying crime was a bungled break-in, illicit photographing of private documents and an attempt to bug the telephones and offices of the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, with plans to do likewise that same night with Nixons most likely Democratic opponent Senator George McGovern, which because of the arrests of five men at the Watergate, did not happen. It may further involve you in a way you shouldnt be involved in this. In 2006, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating George W. Bush's NSA warrantless wiretap program. Since we began, we have presented over 150 programs throughout the United States, reaching somewhere between 45,000 to 50,000 attorneys. When Cox refused this arrangement, Nixon ordered his Attorney General to fire Cox, which Richardson refused to do and resigned himself. Accordingly, I sincerely hope that Mr. McGahn will voluntarily appear and testify. The Mueller Report, like the Watergate Road Map, conveys findings, with supporting evidence, of potential criminal activity based on the work of federal prosecutors, FBI investigators, and witness testimony before a federal grand jury. Dean concludes that conservatism must regenerate itself to remain true to its core ideals of limited government and the rule of law. Dean insisted that Cohen be included in the series. Watergate, the Bipartisan Struggle for Media Access, and the Growth of Cable Television. Feb. 1, 2019. Nixon fired Dean on April 30, the same day he announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman. This revised plan eventually led to attempts to eavesdrop on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., and to the Watergate scandal. You have the problem of clemency for Hunt. 6; cf. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. The burglars' first break-in attempt in late May was successful, but several problems had arisen with poor-quality information from their bugs, and they wanted to photograph more documents. Ultimately, he became a witness for the prosecution. We also talked with Michael Frisch, a friend who is the Ethics Counsel at Georgetown University Law Center. The hearings, recorded by the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT), were broadcast each evening in full, or gavel to gavel, by PBS stations across the nation, so that viewers unable to watch during the day could view the complete proceedings at home. Each days hearings are broken up into multiple parts, which are linked together and named as such. And that destroys the case.. The coverage includes testimony from James McCord and E. Howard Hunt, two of the men arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex; John Dean, White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973, who detailed the extent of the Nixon administration's involvement in the burglary and subsequent cover-up; Chief of Staff H.R. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? In 2001, Dean published The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court, an expos of the White House's selection process for a new Supreme Court justice in 1971, which led to the appointment of William Rehnquist. MUELLER REPORT RE TERMINATION OF COMEY (PP. Again, McGahns testimony about these events, which are described in detail in the Mueller Report, are important for Congress to understand and, as noted later, claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege have been waived (because of disclosure of the Mueller Report authorized by President Trump, and the so-called crime-fraud exception to all privileges). In an exchange with me on March 21, 1973, Nixon conceded such a use of the pardon power was improper: DEAN: Well, thats the problem. John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. All rights reserved. Dean was born in Akron, Ohio, and lived in Marion, the hometown of the 29th President of the United States, Warren Harding, whose biographer he later became. John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1965. WASHINGTON, June 27 Following is the transcript of a White House memorandum analyzing John W. Dean's. testimony on Watergate, as read during the Senate Water gate committee's hearings to day by . Before that, I am so deep in the weeds of Watergate. April 6, 1973: White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with federal Watergate prosecutors. According to the Mueller Report, President Trump directed Mr. McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed on June 17, 2017, over purported conflicts of interest. After the burglars' arrest, Dean took custody of evidence and money from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt, who had been in charge of the burglaries, and destroyed some of the evidence before investigators could find it. But even then your point is that even then you couldnt do it. And politically, itd just be impossible for, you know, you to do it. It's written with Bob Altemeyer, and it's titled Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers. John W. Dean was legal counsel to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, and his Senate testimony lead to Nixon's resignation. I havent and maybe Im not creative enough, Dean said. HANSEN: John Dean's testimony would prove to be prophetic - perhaps even self-fulfilling. [9], In late March in Florida, Mitchell approved a scaled-down plan. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail and intricacy how the President not only knew . Nixon first announced on August 29, 1973, that I had investigated the situation under his direction and found nobody presently employed at the White House had anything to do with the bizarre incident at the Watergate. Since I had conducted no such investigation, I resisted months of repeated efforts to get me to write a bogus report. He moved to Los Angeles with wife Maureen, took business courses at UCLA and worked as an investment banker during the 1980s. Dean, an executive producer on the CNN project, helped wrangle some of the participants, including Alexander Butterfield, now 96, the deputy chief of staff who dropped the bombshell that Nixon had a taping system in the White House, which ultimately led to the presidents resignation in August 1974. Chapter 14 in the book titled "The Lies, The Thefts," divulges the entire memorandum John Ehrlichman, Nixon's Domestic Affairs Advisor, wrote to Treasury Secretary David M. Kennedy and makes for an interesting read. Like Comey, Cox was charged with investigating wrongdoing by the President and his advisors and Cox refused an ultimatum from the White House to limit his access to the secret White House tapes by accepting written transcripts, prepared by the White House and verified by a near deaf senior member of the U.S. Senate, former judge John Stennis, rather than allowing Cox to listen to the tapes. Dean also asserts that Nixon did not directly order the break-in, but that Ehrlichman ordered it on Nixon's behalf. Dean is now the last man standing from that era, He is the last connection between this nation's authoritarian past and present. [15], Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. Mr. McGahn is the most prominent fact witness regarding obstruction of justice cited in the Mueller Report. "[35][36], In February 2018, Dean warned that Rick Gates's testimony may be "the end" of Trump's presidency. Search by keyword or individual, or browse all episodes by clicking Explore the Collection below the search box. Howard Hunts lawyer sought assurances through Nixons Special Counsel Chuck Colson that Hunt would not spend years in prison if he pled guilty in the trial before Judge Sirica in January 1973. He studied at Colgate University and the College of Wooster in Ohio before earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) Liddy presented a preliminary plan for intelligence-gathering operations during the campaign. The Watergate Hearings, 50 Years Ago: Truth Was Not Up for Debate . He admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list. WATERGATE: The Comey firing echoes Nixons firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in the infamous Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973. In June 1973, as a young lawyer on Capitol Hill, I watched White House counsel John Dean testify before Sen. Sam Ervin's Watergate Committee from the row of seats behind the senators. II, P. 52), and McGahn is the only witness that the Special Counsel expressly labels as reliable, calling McGahn a credible witness with no motive to lie or exaggerate given the position he held in the White House. (MUELLER RPT, VOL. John Dean, President Richard M. Nixon's former . The targets of the hacking were the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, from which information was stolen and released to harm the Clinton campaign and in turn would help the Trump campaign. Anchors Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer provided summaries, commentary, and interviews to supplement each broadcast. Reaction to Liddy's plan was highly unfavorable. Petersen provided Nixon with confidential information from the prosecutors and the grand jury proceedings. The White House dissembled on the reason for firing Comey, but President Trump later admitted in a television interview that he made the decision because the thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. Mr. Trump made similar remarks to visiting Russians in Oval Office. Dean did not complete the report. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. Mr. McGahn has expressed concern about being caught between two branches of government in responding to this Committees subpoena for his documents and testimony. Im learning things that I had never known about what had happened and why it happened.. Nine months into the mushrooming scandal, Dean bargained for immunity and won himself a lenient prison term by delivering the sensational, if deeply flawed, testimonybefore the klieg lights of the Senate Watergate committee (1973), the House Judiciary Committee (1974), and the trial of U.S. v. Mitchell (1974)that helped convict Nixon's . Ehrlichman said, If you leave, youll be persona non grata with this administration, so dont take a job where you need any connections to us. Of course, the jobs did want me to have relationships with the Nixon White House. [24] Also in 2006, Dean appeared as an interviewee in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, about the Nixon administration's efforts to keep John Lennon out of the United States. Watergate Hearings: John Dean's Opening Statement (1973) John Dean's statement 2011-04-07T03:55:01Z Maureen "Mo" Dean is known for sitting stoically just behind her husband during the . II, p. 1 that one of the reasons the Special Counsel did not make charging decisions relating to obstruction of justice was because he did not want to potentially preempt [the] constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. The report then cites at footnote 2: See U.S. CONST. And I hasten to add that I learned about obstruction of justice the hard way, by finding myself on the wrong side of the law. His silence is perpetuating an ongoing coverup, and while his testimony will create a few political enemies, based on almost 50 years of experience I can assure him he will make far more real friends. Murdoch has survived scandal after scandal. Weekend Edition revisits audio from Dean's testimony. Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. March 21, 1973: Dean tells Nixon there is a "cancer" on the presidency. He is also the author of three books about television, including a biography of pioneer talk show host and producer David Susskind. Secondly, I believe as an attorney, he has an ethical obligation to testify. To the extent Mr. McGahn wishes to assert Executive Privilege or the Attorney-Client privilege, he can do so, but those privileges were waived regarding the material plainly set forth in the Mueller Report. His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. It also prompts the interview subjects to note how the public based their opinions on Watergate on an agreed upon set of facts, a major difference from todays polarized and partisan media landscape. Former Trump officials have been criticized for waiting to express their misgivings over what was happening in the White House until after they left and made book deals. About two months later, on June 25, 1973, Dean started delivering his testimony in front of the Senate Watergate Committee, during which he spoke about . Specifically, the burglars were interested in information they thought was held by DNC head Lawrence F. O'Brien. Watergate Lawyer John Dean Predicts Legacy Of Jan. 6 Investigation Into Trump. The Mueller Report offers a powerful legal analysis that, notwithstanding the fact the pardon power is one of the most unrestricted of presidential powers, it cannot be used for improper purposes. Coupled with his sense of distance from Nixon's inner circle, the "Berlin Wall" of advisors Haldeman and Ehrlichman, Dean sensed he was going to become the Watergate scapegoat and returned to Washington without completing his report. [33], In speaking engagements in 2014, Dean called Watergate a "lawyers' scandal" that, for all the bad, ushered in needed legal ethics reforms. For several reasons I believe he should testify. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. Marshals and kept instead at Fort Holabird (near Baltimore, Maryland) in a special "safe house" primarily used for witnesses against the Mafia. DEAN: Thats right. 7 min read. Thats for sure. Dean briefly summarizes the takeaways from Comey's testimony and discusses the response by President Trump and his lawyer. II, PP. WATERGATE: This is much like Richard Nixons attempt to get me to write a phony report exonerating the White House from any involvement in Watergate. He could be embarrassed. In a corporation, for example, the attorney would report up to the board of directors or a special committee of the board. This is part one of John W. Dean's testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee. There is no one alive closer to the Watergate scandal than Dean, and now he offers a definitive and deeply personal look at the events that changed his life forever in the four-part documentary series Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal. The program premieres Sunday on CNN. The mainstream media narrative about Watergate is a grotesque and fantastic distortion of historical fact. McGahn decided he would resign rather than carry out the orders, not unlike Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus when they refused to fire Cox. [32], On September 17, 2009, Dean appeared on Countdown with new allegations about Watergate. The Mueller Report also refers to corroboration of McGahn as a witness in that he made contemporaneous notes on occasions (e.g., MUELLER RPT, VOL. Dean's testimony to the Senate the year before implicated Nixon in the Watergate affair. . (Mitchell would not admit this fact, even privately, for almost a year.) While Nixon had a dangerous lust for power, Dean still believes the 37th president and the only one to ever resign still compares favorably to Trump. One of the major clarifications that came about through the new ABA Model Rules was with respect to an attorneys obligations when representing an organization. At first, he shredded incriminating files. Watergate-John-Dean-June-25-1973 . After we settled the case, I started agreeing to do television, Dean said. They don't know if they're a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. I always envisioned going in and out of government. I dont think its an emotion that Donald Trump could ever muster.. 6-7, 122-28, 131-32, 134, 147-48, ET AL):The Mueller Report addresses the question of whether President Trump dangled pardons or offered other favorable treatment to Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone (whose name is redacted so I assume it is him based on educated conjecture) in return for their silence or to keep them from fully cooperating with investigators. [11], On March 22, 1973, Nixon requested that Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter, inviting him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so. In addition, it has long been the rule there is no executive privilege attached to criminal or fraudulent activity. The Watergate hearings were produced by the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT), public televisions Washington hub for national news and public affairs programming. I would like to address a few of the remarkable parallels I find in the Mueller Report that echo Watergate, particularly those related to obstruction of justice. Former White House Counsel John Dean, who was a key figure in the Watergate scandal, arrives to testify before the House Judiciary Committee as the panel seeks to compare the investigations during President Richard Nixon's administration and that of President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill Monday. . If it was a county sheriff they wouldnt [stay], Dean said. ART. Despite Deans courageous decision to testify against a sitting president, the series does not give him a free pass for his role in the Nixon administrations nefarious activities. He was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and sentenced to one to four years in prison. PRESIDENT: You cant do it, till after the 74 elections, thats for sure. Let me briefly address the ethics question. [12], On March 23, the five Watergate burglars, along with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were sentenced with stiff fines and prison time of up to 40 years. Certain aspects of the scandal came to light before Election Day, but Nixon was reelected by a landslide. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. When Dean read that testimony in the summer of 1973 in front of a massive TV audience, he became the face of the Watergate conspiracy for most of America, according to Garrett Graff, author of Watergate: A New History.. We still love each other, Dean said. In the 2022 TV mini-series Gaslit, Dean was played by Dan Stevens. In the summer of 1973, the Watergate hearings held the country spellbound. [citation needed], On April 6, Dean hired an attorney and began cooperating with Senate Watergate investigators, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel and participating in cover-up efforts, not disclosing this obvious conflict to Nixon until some time later. And youre gonna have the clemency problem for the others. The Watergate "master manipulator" said the former president is in trouble after the latest revelations. If the Watergate scandal happened today, Dean believes Fox News and other conservative outlets would give more oxygen to Nixons defenders and perhaps enable the disgraced president to at least finish out his term instead of resigning. The depth of Deans Watergate insights is partly due to a defamation lawsuit he filed against St. Martins Press. John Dean, former counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, testifies before the Senate committee on the Watergate hearing in D.C. on June 27, 1973. Now, 40 years later, then some, Dean will return to Capitol Hill to testify before a different Congress about a different president. Shortly after the Watergate hearings, Dean wrote about his experiences in a series of books and toured the United States to lecture. This is based on my count of FBI 302 reports cited in the Mueller Report. March 23, 1973: The McCord letter is made public by Judge Sirica in open court at McCord's sentencing hearing. Dean had originally been a proponent of Goldwater conservatism, but he later became a critic of the Republican Party. John Dean, while not a fact witness . Howard Hunt told me it would have exonerated Prez Nixon. . (See Separation-of-Powers Principles Support the Conclusion that Congress May Validly Prohibit Corrupt Obstructive Acts Carried Out Through the Presidents Official Powers, MUELLER REPORT, PP. Cognition, 9(1), 122. Senator Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals. This small piece of testimony, of course, became highly significant for it led to the discovery of the secret White House taping system. John W. Dean (center) with his wife, Maureen, and John's lawyer, Charles N. Shaffer, in 1974. And if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. After listening to Nixons March 21, 1973 secretly recorded conversation with me, Jaworski pursued more tapes as vigorously as had Cox. Trumps demands for unyielding loyalty from staff and statements such as asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes that would overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in the state rival what was heard on Nixons tapes, but were delivered with far less discretion. Fired white House counsel John Dean testifies before the Senate Watergate Committee while his wife, Maureen, watches in Washington, June 28, 1973. His coverage of the television industry has appeared in TV Guide, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, Fortune, the Hollywood Reporter, Inside.com and Adweek. John Dean's testimony this week before the House Judiciary Committee squarely placed the Mueller report's findings in the historical context of Watergate. Bob, as a leading legal scholar, was asked to chair an ABA commission to reconsider the ABAs Code of Professional Conduct in light of the Watergate scandal. In Starz's new Gaslit, premiering Sunday, central Watergate figure John Dean is played by Dan Stevens. [17] Neisser did not explain the difference as one of deception; rather, he thought that the evidence supported the theory that memory is not akin to a tape recorder and instead should be thought of as reconstructions of information that are greatly affected by rehearsal, or attempts at replay. Further compounding the situation in 2018, in response to press reports that McGahn had considered resigning over the direction to fire Mueller, Trump asked another White House official (Rob Porter, also an attorney serving as Staff Secretary) to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a false record stating that he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. A few specific examples of the Mueller findings and the Watergate parallels (HEADER CITES ARE TO VOLUME II): MUELLER REPORT RE MICHAEL FLYNN (PP. VS. HALDEMAN, 559 F.2D 31 (D.C. CIR. While I was an active participant in the coverup for a period of time, there is absolutely no information whatsoever that Trumps White House Counsel, Don McGahn, participated in any illegal or improper activity to the contrary, there is evidence he prevented several obstruction attempts. The coverage includes testimony from James McCord and E. Howard Hunt, two of the men arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex; John Dean, White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973, who detailed the extent of the Nixon administrations involvement in the burglary and subsequent cover-up; Chief of Staff H.R. 8. "My feelings about Mr. Nixon remained the same until his death a tangle of familial echoes, affections, and curiosities never satisfied," Leonard Garment wrote in his 1997 autobiography, Crazy Rhythm: From Brooklyn and Jazz to Nixon's White House, Watergate, and Beyond.At first blush, Garment appeared an odd match for President Richard M. Nixon, the former a liberal Republican who . After Comeys testimony to Congress on May 3, 2017, in which he declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation, the President decided to terminate Comey. We were in his Executive Office Building office late on a Sunday night when he got up from his chair and walked to the corner of the room and in a stage-whisper asked me, I was wrong to offer clemency to Hunt, wasnt I? I responded, Yes, Mr. President, that would be an obstruction of justice. As I later testified, at the time it struck me his moving across the office and whispering was to keep what he was saying from being picked up by a hidden microphone in the room.
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