In Watergate, the lesson learned was that no person, even the President, was above the law. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that Nixon authorized the break-in at Democratic headquarters. 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. Mr. Trump asked Comey to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation by saying so to the public. First off . Because, you know, after everybody PRESIDENT: Thats right. Were friends. I havent and maybe Im not creative enough, Dean said. Dean also asserts that Nixon did not directly order the break-in, but that Ehrlichman ordered it on Nixon's behalf. 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. 5; 3, cl. 1 AND 182.). For several reasons I believe he should testify. 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. 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. Dean is now the last man standing from that era, He is the last connection between this nation's authoritarian past and present. He said he had found information via the Nixon tapes that showed what the burglars were after: information on a kickback scheme involving the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. Petersen informed Nixon that this could cause problems for the prosecution of the case, but Nixon publicly announced his position that evening. [9], In late March in Florida, Mitchell approved a scaled-down plan. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. All believed that they could rely on the President to offer clemency under the Presidents pardon power. At first, he shredded incriminating files. On April 17, 1973, Nixon told Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen (who was overseeing the Watergate investigation) that he did not want any member of the White House granted immunity from prosecution. HANSEN: John Dean's testimony would prove to be prophetic - perhaps even self-fulfilling. . Liddy presented a preliminary plan for intelligence-gathering operations during the campaign. The Mueller Report explains in Vol. . He moved to Los Angeles with wife Maureen, took business courses at UCLA and worked as an investment banker during the 1980s. WATERGATE: The Comey firing echoes Nixons firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in the infamous Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973. Senator Russell Feingold, who sponsored the censure resolution, introduced Dean as a "patriot" who put "rule of law above the interests of the president." Stated a bit differently, Special Counsel Mueller has provided this committee a road map. June 27, 2022 05:36 PM. $23.91 4 Used from $8.00 3 New from $23.91 1 Collectible from $59.95. Rep. Collins calls John Dean the 'godfather' of obstruction of justice, John Dean considers Watergate a roadmap for Mueller Report. In that position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent scandal and cover-up . Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, the last time I appeared before your committee was . According to Dean, modern conservatism, specifically on the Christian Right, embraces obedience, inequality, intolerance, and strong intrusive government, in stark contrast to Goldwater's philosophies and policies. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail . President Nixons direct interference with the Department of Justice, while facially proper under his Article II constitutional powers, was for the improper purpose of obstructing the investigation. In 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Commit . [8][pageneeded], On January 27, 1972, Dean, the White House Counsel, met with Jeb Magruder (Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CRP and CREEP) and Mitchell (Attorney General of the United States, and soon-to-be Director of CRP), in Mitchell's office, for a presentation by G. Gordon Liddy (counsel for CRP and a former FBI agent). The materials were contributed to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) by the Library of Congress in 2017. 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. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. He studied at Colgate University and the College of Wooster in Ohio before earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) The following year, he became an associate deputy in the office of the Attorney General of the United States, serving under Attorney General John N. Mitchell, with whom he was on friendly terms. a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH. Paramount to pay $122.5 million to settle lawsuit over CBS deal. . In this latest book, Dean, who has repeatedly called himself a "Goldwater conservative", built on Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience to argue that the Republican Party has gravely damaged all three branches of the federal government in the service of ideological rigidity and with no attention to the public interest or the general good. He shares his story in the series "Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal." It . Cooper asked Dean, whom the FBI dubbed the "master manipulator" of the Watergate scandal when he flipped to cooperate with prosecutors against Nixon, how high the bar must be for the Justice Department to pursue the charges against Trump. Dean was also receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving the vulnerabilities of other White House staff. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.[18][19]. Through his lawyer, Cohen sought advice from Dean before testifying in 2019 to the House Oversight Committee, where he leveled allegations of criminal wrongdoing by Trump. I always envisioned going in and out of government. II, PP. . John Dean. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo. Yet events in both 1972 and 2016 resulted in obstruction of the investigations. 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. 24-48): When President Trump learned that his National Security Advisor Michael Flynn lied to the FBI and others about his telephone conversations with the Russian Ambassador to the United States regarding U. S. sanctions imposed because of Russias election interference, he met with FBI Director James Comey at a private White House dinner and asked for Comeys loyalty. Nixon fired Dean on April 30, the same day he announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman. But he was told by his immediate boss, John Ehrlichman, that his post-White House career would be difficult if he left. Search by keyword or individual, or browse all episodes by clicking Explore the Collection below the search box. 98-103): According to the report, in June 2017 after emails setting up a June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians became known in the White House, the President engaged in efforts to prevent disclosure of the emails and then dictated a false or misleading statement characterizing the meeting as about adoptions in order to protect his son, Don, Jr. WATERGATE: On the weekend that the Nixon reelection committee men were arrested in the DNC offices at the Watergate, Nixons campaign manager, and former attorney general, John Mitchell, along with his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman and former White House Counsel, John Ehrlichman, drafted a false press release about the men arrested at the Watergate. Yes, Dean and Mo are still married. Richard Nixon resigned as president the next year. In short, the firing of FBI Director Comey, like Nixons effort to curtail the Watergate investigation, resulted in the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller. In the 1995 film Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone, Dean was played by David Hyde Pierce. Was he hard-nosed and tough? Los Angeles, David Lindley, guitarist best known for work with Jackson Browne, dies at 78, WGA asks members to vote on key demands in bargaining with studios, Alec Baldwin and Rust producers sued by crew members over fatal shooting, Rupert Murdoch admits he knew Fox News hosts endorsed false election fraud claims, deposition shows, Historic movie lot that gave Studio City its name to get $1-billion makeover. The point is: Richard Nixon knew he could not use his pardon power, unrestricted as it is in Article II, for the improper purpose of gaining the silence of witnesses in legal proceedings. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. Fifty years later, that's how John Dean, the former White House counsel whose marathon testimony before the US Senate's Watergate Committee tipped the dominoes toward the ultimate resignation . 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. Im learning things that I had never known about what had happened and why it happened.. Haldeman and Chief . John Dean, a former White House counsel who . Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. John W. Dean on the second day of testimony in front of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973. The Real Housewives of Atlanta The Bachelor Sister Wives 90 Day Fiance Wife Swap The Amazing Race Australia Married at First Sight The Real Housewives of Dallas My 600-lb Life Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Accordingly, I sincerely hope that Mr. McGahn will voluntarily appear and testify. Each days hearings are broken up into multiple parts, which are linked together and named as such. 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. It may further involve you in a way you shouldnt be involved in this. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced and on January 8, Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served, which was four months. [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. John Dean during the filming of Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal in 2020. . In 1992, Dean hired attorney Neil Papiano and brought the first in a series of defamation suits against Liddy for claims in Liddy's book Will, and St. Martin's Press for its publication of the book Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. Nixon chose not to disclose the information he did have in order to protect his friend Mitchell, believing that revealing this truth would destroy Mitchell. John Dean III, a former White House aide in the Nixon administration, is sworn in by Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin (D-N.C.) before testifying on Capitol Hill in this June 25, 1973. I learned this fact from Robert Kutak, with whom I had a friendship from our days when we worked as staffers for Congress. II, P. WATERGATE: President Trump repeated efforts to have Attorney General Sessions reverse his recusal un-recuse himself to take control of the Special Counsels investigation parallels President Nixons attempt to control the FBI investigation through his former White House Counsel John Ehrlichman. Gray's nomination failed and Dean was directly linked to the Watergate cover-up. 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. Its the White House in the remarkable city at the top of the government. In addition, it has long been the rule there is no executive privilege attached to criminal or fraudulent activity. On this episode of the Mea Culpa Podcast, Michael Cohen welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. MUELLER REPORT RE EFFORTS TO CONTROL ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS (PP. A few specific examples of the Mueller findings and the Watergate parallels (HEADER CITES ARE TO VOLUME II): MUELLER REPORT RE MICHAEL FLYNN (PP. 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. In the preface to his 2006 book Conservatives Without Conscience, Dean strongly denied Colodny's theory, pointing out that Colodny's chief source (Phillip Mackin Bailley) had been in and out of mental institutions. He said, "It's a nightmare. He could be embarrassed. Using Altemeyer's scholarly work, he contends that there is a tendency toward ethically questionable political practices when authoritarians are in power and that the current political situation is dangerously unsound because of it. April 6, 1973: White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with federal Watergate prosecutors. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. [13] It was alleged[who?] His deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused to fire Cox and also resigned, with the next man in succession, Solicitor General Robert Bork carrying out the presidents order to terminate Cox. But even then your point is that even then you couldnt do it. 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. (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. John Dean, President Richard M. Nixon's former . Silent Coup alleged that Dean masterminded the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate coverup and that the true aim of the burglaries was to seize information implicating Dean and the former Maureen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiance) in a prostitution ring. John Dean was born in Akron, Ohio, and spent a significant part of his life in Marion. 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. [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. (Mitchell would not admit this fact, even privately, for almost a year.) On February 28, 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his nomination to replace J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. No one has sought to control this narrative more than former White House Counsel John Dean. I also told him that it was important that this cancer be removed immediately because it was growing more deadly every day. They don't know whether to hire lawyers or not, how they're going to pay for them if they do. Reaction to Liddy's plan was highly unfavorable. Ultimately, he became a witness for the prosecution. The program also includes one of the few current day public figures who can fully understand what Dean went through Trumps former longtime attorney Michael Cohen, who went to prison for tax evasion and campaign finance violations.