It all goes back to Watergate: those days that echo in the memory of Roger Stone, Donald Trump\u2019s friend. Somewhere, deep down inside, Roger Stone wants to prove that Nixon was right and everyone else was wrong.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon is Stone\u2019s hero; the tattoo of Nixon\u2019s face on his back proves the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congress began its investigation into the Watergate crisis and the White House in February of 1973. That was seven months after the actual break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex. The President himself wasn\u2019t the \u201ctarget\u201d of the investigation. In the beginning, no one knew how far the scandal went into the White House. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Committee held closed investigative depositions at the beginning.\u00a0\u00a0It was only after three and a half months that they began public hearings.\u00a0\u00a0Those went on for another almost four more months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the middle of those public hearings, the President\u2019s two closest aides, Bob Halderman and John Ehrlichman resigned. So did the Attorney General.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon appointed a new Attorney General, Eliot Richardson, who immediately appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Watergate.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Senate hearings were on TV throughout the summer of 1973.\u00a0\u00a0It became a daily ritual for me (I was sixteen) that summer, watching intently as the networks rotated gavel-to-gavel coverage. July 16th<\/sup>, 1973 was just another day, another White House guy that no one knew about testifying.\u00a0 But\u00a0what Alexander Butterfield said changed the entire investigation.\u00a0\u00a0He revealed in public testimony that the White House had a taping system.\u00a0\u00a0 The President recorded all conversations in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and his private office.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Howard Baker was a Republican Senator from Tennessee.\u00a0\u00a0Baker naturally supported the President, but he kept an open mind in the hearings.\u00a0\u00a0His question, \u201cwhat did the President know, and when did he know it,\u201d became the purpose for the entire investigation.\u00a0\u00a0And, after Butterfield, the way to find out the answer to that question was obvious:\u00a0\u00a0let\u2019s hear the tapes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Special Counsel Archibald Cox subpoenaed the White House for the tapes, but they refused to release them.\u00a0\u00a0He persisted in Court, and was fired by Nixon in the infamous \u201cSaturday Night Massacre\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Outrage over the firing (it included Richardson and the Deputy Attorney General as well) led to the appointment of another Special Prosecutor, who continued the relentless efforts to get the tapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The legal battles went on all winter.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate Committee concluded their investigation, and the House Judiciary Committee took up impeachment proceedings against the President\u2019s obstruction based on the \u201cSaturday Night Massacre\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0The White House claimed \u201cexecutive privilege\u201d over the tapes, arguing that no President could do his job if every conversation he had could become public. The Special Prosecutor argued that \u201cprivilege\u201d couldn\u2019t shield the President’s possible criminal actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In April of 1974 that the White House tried to defuse the case by releasing \u201ctranscripts\u201d of the tapes, edited, supposedly, to protect \u201cnational security\u201d. The transcripts left open the question about the role of the President in the scandal, but they did add a new term to the American political lexicon, \u201cexpletive deleted\u201d. If nothing else, we found out the Richard Nixon was a \u201cpotty mouth\u201d in almost all of his private conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201credacted\u201d transcripts weren\u2019t enough, particularly one important conversation that had an eighteen minute “gap”.\u00a0\u00a0The Special Prosecutor continued to pursue the actual tapes in Court.\u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t until July of 1974 in the United States v Nixon<\/em> that the Supreme Court ruled (8-0) that the tapes had to be released to the Special Prosecutor.\u00a0\u00a0When the full versions of the tapes were heard, the Judiciary Committee found that the President knew and helped orchestrate the Watergate cover-up from the very beginning.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon finally resigned in the face of sure impeachment and removal from office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In historic \u201cechoes\u201d of Watergate, Donald Trump released a \u201credacted\u201d transcript of his conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky.\u00a0\u00a0Even with redactions, the summary shows the President pressured Zelensky to investigate both Joe Biden, and the alt-right conspiracy theory called \u201cCrowdStrike.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0While the White House summary does not clearly show a deal, US aid money for Ukrainian investigations: the testimony of many of those involved demonstrates that there was a \u201cquid pro quo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This week, in \u201cclosed\u201d testimony, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who listened in to the President\u2019s original phone conversation, noted that the \u201credactions\u201d were hiding damning statements by the President.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In addition to all of the other evidence the Intelligence Committee has heard, it\u2019s clear that the full transcript of this conversation, and potentially transcripts of the President\u2019s discussions with President Xi of China, would reveal more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roger Stone believes that Nixon should have had a bonfire on the White House lawn, and burned all of the tapes.\u00a0\u00a0His view is, while there would have been outrage, the fire would have destroyed the \u201csmoking gun\u201d that led to Nixon\u2019s removal.\u00a0\u00a0He might be right; Nixon could have claimed he was defending \u201cexecutive privilege\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0With the tapes gone, Stone thinks, there would be little the Courts could do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The full transcripts of Trump’s phone calls are on a high security server in the White House.\u00a0\u00a0White House legal counsel and National Security staff saved them there, instead of a less secure site, to fully protect their content from going public.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps they\u2019ll consider burning that server in the Rose Garden. They can invite the “Freedom Caucus” over to roast marshmallows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Judiciary Committee in 1974 waited for the tapes to be released.\u00a0\u00a0The full import of Nixon\u2019s own words were what led to his impeachment.\u00a0\u00a0It was those actual words that convinced the Senate, and the American people, that he should be removed.\u00a0\u00a0Today’s House of Representatives doesn\u2019t feel like there\u2019s much time left to resolve impeachment.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s still the words of this President that will prove to be his own undoing, edited or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nixon\u2019s Voice<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Edited Transcripts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Burn the Tapes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n