The Burglars In The Watergate Scandal

On June 17, 1972 there were five burglars arrested inside of the Office of the Democratic National Committee, which is located in the watergate building in Washington D.C. The robbers were caught trying to wiretap phones and steal secret documents. It turns out that the robbers are connected to Nixon’s reelection campaign. They weren’t sure if Nixon was connected to the burglary, but he attempted to cover it up. For example, he raised “hush money” for the burglars, he destroyed evidence, fired uncooperative staff members. He even tried to get the FBI to stop the investigation of the crime. Some of Nixon’s aides testified before a grand jury about the president’s crimes. They also testified that Nixon had secretly taped every conversation that took place in the Oval Office. All the prosecutors needed was to get their hands on those tapes. That would prove that Nixon was guilty. The court indicted seven of Nixon’s closest aides and also issued Nixon a subpoena. Nixon said he was immune from the subpoena, claiming “executive privilege” which means he has the right to withhold information from other government branches. He eventually had to turn over the tapes and three days later he ended up resigning from the presidency.

Nixon didn’t want to turn the tapes over so he said he didn’t have to because of ‘executive privilege’. This caused the Supreme Court to question executive privilege. They wanted to know if executive privilege is immune to subpoenas or immune to giving up evidence in criminal