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The Plumbers, the Hearings, and the Secrets That Couldn't Stay Buried
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
A strip of tape, five men in surgical gloves, and a secret White House unit called the Plumbers — this is how a bungled break-in began unravelling a presidency. From Deep Throat in a Virginia parking garage to John Dean's explosive Senate testimony, the cover-up was always bigger than the crime.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
It's just past two in the morning on June seventeenth, nineteen seventy-two. A security guard named Frank Wills is doing his rounds inside the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
The White House moves fast to contain the story. Press Secretary Ron Ziegler calls it a third-rate burglary attempt.
Here's how the investigation actually works, because it's not what people imagine. It's not clean.
The break-in itself is almost absurd in its incompetence. The burglars had made three separate attempts to enter the DNC offices before the night Frank Wills found the tape.
By nineteen seventy-three, the political pressure has built far enough that the Senate establishes the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. The hearings are televised.
Nixon fights to keep the tapes. He claims executive privilege.
The Supreme Court rules unanimously in July of nineteen seventy-four that Nixon must turn over the tapes. Executive privilege does not protect a president from a criminal investigation.
On the evening of August eighth, nineteen seventy-four, Richard Nixon addresses the nation from the Oval Office. He announces his resignation.
Twenty-five members of the Nixon administration are eventually convicted of crimes related to Watergate. The scandal reshapes campaign finance law, intelligence oversight, and the public's relationship with the executive branch.
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