June 25, 1973: White House counsel John Dean recounts his meetings with President Nixon to the Senate Watergate Committee: "I began by telling the President that there was a cancer growing on . In the summer of 1973, former White House Counsel John Dean testified as part of the Senate's investigation into the Watergate break-in. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. 1 AND 182.). John Dean, who served as White House counsel to President Richard Nixon and played a key role in the Watergate hearings in the 1970s, compared the findings in the Mueller report to Watergate . John Dean stars as Democrats launch Trump offensive with Watergate Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. Ari Emanuel lets his AI alter ego open Endeavors earnings call, WGA chief negotiator David Young replaced due to illness ahead of key talks with studios, Hidden, illegal casinos are booming in L.A., with organized crime reaping big profits, Look up: The 32 most spectacular ceilings in Los Angeles, 19 cafes that make L.A. a world-class coffee destination, Best coffee city in the world? McGahn refused to follow the Presidents order, recalling the opprobrium that met Robert Bork following the Saturday Night Massacre. In addition, it has long been the rule there is no executive privilege attached to criminal or fraudulent activity. Timeline of the Watergate scandal - Wikipedia The public pressure was so great, Nixon had to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. 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. Dean served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Petersen provided Nixon with confidential information from the prosecutors and the grand jury proceedings. 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. First, he is a key witness in understanding the Mueller Report. Because, you know, after everybody PRESIDENT: Thats right. This is a taped except of Dean as he recalled that meeting with President Nixon. On their second break-in, on the night of June 16, hotel security discovered the burglars. In 2006, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating George W. Bush's NSA warrantless wiretap program. Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, the last time I appeared before your committee was July 11, 1974, during the impeachment inquiry of President Richard Nixon. 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. Dean did not complete the report. Stated a bit differently, Special Counsel Mueller has provided this committee a road map. John W. Dean was legal counsel to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, and his Senate testimony lead to Nixon's resignation. It also came out that Gray had destroyed important evidence Dean entrusted to him. The case of Dean vs. Liddy was dismissed without prejudice. He has been a go-to talking head whenever a presidential scandal is brewing, and the twice-impeached Donald Trump whose desperate attempt to stay in the White House after losing the 2020 election remains under investigation has kept him busy as a CNN contributor. John Dean, while not a fact witness . This year Dean will be celebrating another anniversary 50 years of marriage to his wife, Maureen. . Ex-Watergate lawyer: Michael Cohen is no John Dean but he still might 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. Part of his decision to cooperate with investigators was self-preservation, as he believed he was being set up to take the fall for the White Houses handling of the scandal. 78-90, 113-133): According to Muellers account, Don McGahn played a critical role in interdicting the Presidents express efforts to fire Special Counsel Mueller. First off . PRESIDENT: Thats a problem. 50 years after the Watergate break-in, John Dean relives the scandal I havent and maybe Im not creative enough, Dean said. It certainly changed my career path. Former White House Counsel John Dean's testimony in the Watergate investigation helped topple Richard Nixon's presidency. Let me briefly address the ethics question. 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 . Feb. 1, 2019. Watergate's John Dean To Testify Before House Inquiry : NPR 6; cf. in 1961. Meanwhile, John Dean (Dan Stevens) was reportedly aware of the break-in plans and later tried to cover it all up. 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. Traduo Context Corretor Sinnimos Conjugao. He's penned five books about Watergate and 10 books in total; including his most recent tome, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his Followers. [32], On September 17, 2009, Dean appeared on Countdown with new allegations about Watergate. Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was interested in meeting with Dean and planned to do so a few days later, but Cox was fired by Nixon the next day; it was not until a month later that Cox was replaced by Leon Jaworski. 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. 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. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail . When Nixon learned that Dean had begun cooperating with federal prosecutors, he pressed Attorney General Richard Kleindienst not to give Dean immunity from prosecution by telling Kleindienst that Dean was lying to the Justice Department about his conversations with the president. He shares his story in the series "Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal." It . But on March 21, 1973, he went to the Oval Office and told Nixon there was "a cancer " on the presidency that would take them all down they didn't . 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. Shortly after Watergate, Dean became an investment banker, author and lecturer based in Beverly Hills, California. June 1, 2022 1:43 PM PT. They don't know what they're looking at. [14], When it was revealed that Nixon had secretly recorded all meetings in the Oval Office, famous psychologist and memory researcher Ulric Neisser analyzed Dean's recollections of the meetings, as expressed through his testimony, in comparison to the meetings' actual recordings. The image of her calmly seated behind her husband throughout the hearings became one of the most memorable tableaus of the 1970s. While navigating the crisis together has strengthened their bond, Dean still has regrets over putting his wife through the extraordinary experience. Watergate-John-Dean-June-25-1973 . The depth of Deans Watergate insights is partly due to a defamation lawsuit he filed against St. Martins Press. [27], After it became known that Bush authorized NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense". that Nixon's motivation for preventing Dean from getting immunity was to prevent him from testifying against key Nixon aides and Nixon himself. 1973, Nixon fired Dean. The investigation revealed that Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail and intricacy how the President not only knew . Nixon said, And, ah, because these people are playing for keeps, . Mr. McGahn has expressed concern about being caught between two branches of government in responding to this Committees subpoena for his documents and testimony. And that destroys the case.. [16], Neisser found that, despite Dean's confidence, the tapes proved that his memory was anything but a tape recorder. 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. Well, John Dean has a new book. [5], Dean was employed from 1966 to 1967 as chief minority counsel to the Republicans on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. The program, produced by Herzog & Company, delves into the archive of Watergate-related material Dean has accumulated and stored in his Beverly Hills home over the years, including his 60,000-word testimony to a Senate subcommittee originally written in longhand on yellow legal pads. A full cast of characters is available in our Gavel-to-Gavel exhibit. Watergate Lawyer John Dean Predicts Legacy Of Jan. 6 Investigation Into 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. 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. In that position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent scandal and cover-up . It was a very sympathetic and very believable portrait, said Graff. 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. Had I known the trouble I was in, I would have never married her.. Model Rule 1.13 provides that a lawyer representing an organization represents the entity and not the individuals running the entity. (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. Rather I accepted the invitation to appear today because I hope I can give a bit of historical context to the Mueller Report. 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. In short, the firing of FBI Director Comey, like Nixons effort to curtail the Watergate investigation, resulted in the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller. Howard Hunt told me it would have exonerated Prez Nixon. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Mea Culpa - Rupert Murdoch Throws His Own Company Under the Bus + A 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. In July 1973, evidence mounted against the president's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee. 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. Well, John Dean has a new book. 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. [4], After graduation, Dean joined Welch & Morgan, a law firm in Washington, D.C., where he was soon accused of conflict of interest violations and fired:[2] he was alleged to have started negotiating his own private deal for a TV station broadcast license, after his firm had assigned him to complete the same task for a client. Liddy presented a preliminary plan for intelligence-gathering operations during the campaign. In the 2022 TV mini-series Gaslit, Dean was played by Dan Stevens. Fired white House counsel John Dean testifies before the Senate Watergate Committee while his wife, Maureen, watches in Washington, June 28, 1973. In July 1970, he accepted an appointment to serve as counsel to the president, after the previous holder of this post, John Ehrlichman, became the president's chief domestic adviser. Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, the last time I appeared before your committee was . [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. [2] He attended Colgate University and then transferred to the College of Wooster in Ohio, where he obtained his B.A. In his testimony, he implicated administration officials, including Mitchell, Nixon, and himself. 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. 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. Blind Ambition was ghostwritten by future Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Taylor Branch[20] and later made into a 1979 TV miniseries. 'Everything changed': This Watergate testimony captivated the - CNN You have the problem of clemency for Hunt. 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. And politically, itd just be impossible for, you know, you to do it. 8. Why Hollywood Still Loves Watergate, Fifty Years Later - Deadline . 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.. Jim Robenalt and I have discussed this at length. As Watergate broke, Haldeman and John Ehrlichman trusted their bright attorney to control the political fall out after the burglars were arrested, part of which involved him paying them large sums of money. II, PP. Speaking of Betty Gilpin, John Dean is practicing his testimony, and Mo is advising him. PRESIDENT: You cant do it, till after the 74 elections, thats for sure. Eight years ago, we created a course called The Watergate CLE. 62-77): President Trump called Director Comey multiple times, against the advice of Don McGahn, to have him confirm that he, Trump, was not personally under investigation. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. They don't know if they're a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. HANSEN: John Dean's testimony would prove to be prophetic - perhaps even self-fulfilling. 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. . A Look Back at John Dean's Testimony : NPR - NPR.org Watergate, the Bipartisan Struggle for Media Access, and the Growth of Cable Television. 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. Michael and John dig deep into Watergate, January 6th, and DOJ. 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. On this episode of the Mea Culpa Podcast, Michael Cohen welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. PRINTING OFFICE, 1974); AND SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT S. MUELLER, III, REPORT ON THE INVESTIGATION INTO RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, VOLUMES I AND II (WASHINGTON, D.C: GOV. Search by keyword or individual, or browse all episodes by clicking Explore the Collection below the search box. But the CNN series is the first time hes told his story in a documentary, which drills down into how and why Richard Nixon looked for dirt on his opponents and detailed accounts of his criminal actions to cover it up. [citation needed], Dean continued to provide information to the prosecutors, who were able to make enormous progress on the cover-up, which until then they had virtually ignored, concentrating on the actual burglary and events preceding it. No one has sought to control this narrative more than former White House Counsel John Dean. The Watergate "master manipulator" said the former president is in trouble after the latest revelations. The Watergate Hearings - American Archive Dean had originally been a proponent of Goldwater conservatism, but he later became a critic of the Republican Party. Mea Culpa: Rupert Murdoch Throws His Own Company Under the Bus + A In reissuing Blind Ambition, which spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list and has been out of print for over two decades, author John Dean has added a powerful new Afterword, an extended essay in which he explains with the new clarity why (and how . It helped to reshape the public understanding of Watergate.. 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. Modern American History, 3(2-3), 175-198. [Emphasis added.]. Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. MUELLER REPORT RE TERMINATION OF COMEY (PP. Michael Cohen and Watergate Whistleblower Dissect HISTORIC Criminal For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. But Deans inside knowledge on how the bungled burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters on June 17, 1972, ultimately revealed an organized-crime-type mind-set within the Nixon administration has kept him on the contact list of TV news guest bookers for decades.