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How Did The Watergate Scandal

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The Watergate Scandal is one of America’s most shameful moments that we still haven’t completely recovered from. The Watergate Scandal involved President Richard Nixon between 1972 and 1974. On June 17, 1972, the police had found five burglars at the office of the Democratic national Committee at the Watergate complex. Four of them were part of the CIA and the fifth burglar was security chief of the committee trying to re-elect the president. They had stole copies of top-secret documents and bugged the office phones. Because there was a fault in their wiretaps, they had to return on June 17 but the police caught them. It was not clear if the burglars were partnered with the president. However in August, Nixon gave a speech defending himself …show more content…

He had instructed the CIA to delay the FBI’s investigation. Nixon had abused his power as the president and deliberate obstruction of justice. Five of Nixon’s aides were pleaded guilty and avoided the trial while another two were convicted in 1973. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein began to suspect that there was more to this scandal. Many government officials were beginning to crack and testified that Nixon had taped every conversation that took place in the Oval office. Nixon tried to hide the tapes during 1973. Archibald Cox was a prosecutor who was determined to obtain the tapes. Nixon orders Cox to be dismissed which lead to the resignation of many Justice Department officials. This was known as the Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon had released some of his tapes but not all. The cover-up was falling apart. In July 1974, the Supreme Court had ordered Nixon to surrender all of the tapes. The House of Representatives voted to impeach the president for his abuse of power, criminal cover-up, violated the Constitution, and for interfering with justice. On August 5, 1974, Nixon had turned the tapes over to the public. He resigned three days

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Richard Nixon, our 37th president of the United States, is best remembered for his involvement in the Watergate scandal in the 1970’s. The Watergate scandal is mainly known for the break in at the Watergate building which is where the Democratic National Committee is located at in Washington, D.C. The break in consisted the undertaking of wiretapping of phones and the act of stealing confidential documents. After time had passed by, the FBI started growing suspicious about Nixon’s role in the scandal especially when he tried covering up the issue by providing hush money for the people who were involved in the break in. He also tried stopping the FBI from doing their job by not allowing to investigate the break in and as well as firing any disobedient

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Nixon and his administration originally denied all involvement. It later came to light that Nixon had wired the group hundreds of thousands of dollars in, “hush money” and that Nixon had recorded all his phone conversations. Nixon drug his feet for as long as he could when it came to releasing the taps, but when the Supreme Court ordered him to, there was no denying Nixon’s role in the crimes. Nixon resigned before he could be

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Eventually, when Nixon went to trial the judge asked him to hand over the tapes there were parts missing, which showed the country that he was covering up something. These tapes would show that Nixon had acknowledgement of the break-in a week before it even happened. The judge ended up convicting Nixon with three felonies, federal crime, abusing presidential powers, and keeping evidence. Furthermore, Nixon was forced to resign from the presidential seat and handing over the seat to Gerald Ford, who is the only president to not be elected as president

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These burglars were caught carrying enough equipment to wiretap telephones and take pictures of papers. Because people expected Nixon to have something to do with it, which he did. When brought up to trails or questioning, Nixon would lie or make excuses so one would get caught. The president paying bribes and impeding the FBI investigation so that he would not be removed. An firing government officials and destroying evidence made the US that made them look bad.

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congress this was mostly because Nixon’s reelection campaign which they caught the burglars who caught wiretapping phones,and stole documents. Nixon tried to cover it up but found out and they resigned him as president on Aug.9,1974. Nixon Resigns-When the Watergate Scandal escalated and all of America knew about the scandal and didn’t really want him as president resigned on Aug.9,1974 of impeachment and removal from office. Executive Privilege-It was a term by the President for the Executive Branch of the U.S. government withholding information in the public interest.

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Nixon delivered his second Watergate speech three months later, on April 15, 1973. In this speech, Nixon accepts the blame due to his position as an authority, while still maintaining his own innocence in relation to the scandal, declaring, “‘because the abuses occurred during my Administration, and in the campaign for my reelection, I accept full responsibility for them. However, it is my constitutional responsibility to defend the integrity of this great office against false charges’” (Nixon second Watergate speech).

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Nixon continued to insist that he had no part in the Watergate scandal. Due to a taping system in the White House the president’s conversations had been taped, instead of releasing the tapes to prove his innocence, the president refused pleading “executive privilege.” This lead to the

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Richard Nixon was a very paranoid man and thought that his enemies were everywhere so in the re-election in 1972, he would prove the his enemies and to the world that he was the greatest and he would stop at nothing to get to his goal. The results that came out from the re-election were amazing, he defeated George McGovern by the almost 20 million more votes which made him seem invincible at the time. During his 2 years as president, 2 reporters from the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did not believe that he could win by such a milestone so they dug and dug on Richard Nixon and they found everything out about him. They found out that there was a committee made called the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) that was a secret committee that would break laws in order for Nixon to win the re-election. The most well known incident of the Watergate Scandal was when 3 burglars from the CRP sneaked into the Watergate complex to put tiny microphones all over the place so they could listen on what the Democrat’s strategies were so they could always be one step ahead.

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Nixon case developed because Nixon tried to use his executive power to deny turning over the tapes. The United States has a separation of powers to avoid giving one branch too much power, but Nixon was trying to overstep by not turning in the tapes, and when he finally did release them, they were tampered. Nixon also tried to argue that the tapes could not be heard in courts because it involved arguments between the executive branch. His lawyers also tried to say because he is the president he had immunity to deny releasing any tapes. Executive privilege is basically the president power to withhold information from the public eye.

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"Evidence that almost from Day One Nixon played a role in the conspiracy to conceal White House involvement" (Miller, 95). The outcome of the people’s distrust in Nixon led to the demise of his presidency and with that, more distrust came onto the public officials of the United States. The tension between the president and other public officials was at a high point due to other public officials trying to protect their own names. Shown when the

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In the speech he announced the resignations of several staff members due to their alleged involvement in the break-in. In the speech, Nixon recounted his indignation at the “‘senseless, illegal action,’” citing the indictments of seven defendants after he ordered an investigation. Nixon maintained that he staunchly supported members of his staff until he learned, in March of 1973, of “‘a real possibility that some of these charges were true,’” and of “‘an effort to conceal the facts from […] the public’” (Nixon’s first Watergate speech).

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One of the first major discoveries came from the testimony of Patrick Gray. He stated that he had numerous meetings with John Dean about Watergate and gave him permission to sit in on FBI interviews of White House aides (Hillstrom). As more and more information was uncovered things looked worse for Nixon, but what would come next would change his presidency

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What is even more dishonorable, is that Nixon had secret tapes that he secretly recorded with 3,700 hours of meetings and calls in executive offices. These tapes were the fault of the entire scandal, which was detrimental to Nixon’s presidency. Nixon refused to turn them over and eventually handing over edited transcripts of the tapes. In order to hide the incriminating evidence, Nixon compulsively lied throughout the whole predicament to the press and to the people of America-even the government. Eventually, Nixon handed over the tapes as commanded by the US Supreme Court.

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The investigation uncovered a network of criminal actions, including wiretapping, money laundering, and obstruction of justice. Nixon eventually resigned from office in 1974 as a result of the controversy. The Watergate scandal shook the public's confidence in the government and the media, as it became clear that the Nixon administration had engaged in illegal and unethical behavior to gain an advantage in the 1972 presidential

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