[11], On March 22, 1973, Nixon requested that Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter, inviting him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so. 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. The examples that follow are illustrative rather than exhaustive, and before turning to obstruction of justice, I must make brief mention of the underlying events to place the material in context: MUELLER REPORT VOLUME I: The underlying crimes were a Russian active measures social media campaign and hacking/dumping operations, which Mueller describes as a sweeping and systematic effort to influence our 2016 presidential election. Using Altemeyer's scholarly work, he contends that there is a tendency toward ethically questionable political practices when authoritarians are in power and that the current political situation is dangerously unsound because of it. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. President Nixons direct interference with the Department of Justice, while facially proper under his Article II constitutional powers, was for the improper purpose of obstructing the investigation. John Dean, the White House counsel to President Richard M. Nixon who was once dubbed the "master manipulator" of the Watergate scandal by the FBI, predicts . What did Disney actually lose from its Florida battle with DeSantis? Watergate Lawyer John Dean Predicts Legacy Of Jan. 6 Investigation Into Trump. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced and on January 8, Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served, which was four months. Dean also told the Senate Watergate committee that if testimony by Jeb Stuart Magruder, a former White House aide, was credible, the President probably had advance knowledge of plans to break into . Its the White House in the remarkable city at the top of the government. Yet President Nixon knew that offering such pardons or giving pardons to try to control witnesses in legal proceedings was wrong. 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. The Watergate hearings were produced by the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT), public televisions Washington hub for national news and public affairs programming. An . Mr. Trump asked Comey to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation by saying so to the public. Nixon vigorously denied all accusations that he had authorized a cover-up, and Dean had no corroboration beyond various notes he had taken in his meetings with the president. The coverage includes testimony from James McCord and E. Howard Hunt, two of the men arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex; John Dean, White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973, who detailed the extent of the Nixon administration's involvement in the burglary and subsequent cover-up; Chief of Staff H.R. 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. Later Nixon worked directly with Henry Petersen, the top Justice Department official in charge of the Watergate investigation, once I had broken with the White House. 74-CCC-7004)", Doing Legal, Political, and Historical Research on the Internet: Using Blog Forums, Open Source Dictionaries, and More, "John Dean's Role at Issue in Nixon Tapes Feud", "Watergate's lasting legacy is to legal ethics reform, says John Dean", "John Dean helped bring down Richard Nixon. The Mueller Report explains in Vol. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. He was trying to shape my future testimony. [25] Three years later, Dean wrote a book heavily critical of the administration of George W. Bush, Worse than Watergate, in which he called for the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for allegedly lying to Congress. WATERGATE: I am aware of no evidence that Nixon was involved with or had advance knowledge of the Watergate break-in and bugging, or the similar plans for Senator McGovern. I 2, cl. Meanwhile, John Dean (Dan Stevens) was reportedly aware of the break-in plans and later tried to cover it all up. Through his lawyer, Cohen sought advice from Dean before testifying in 2019 to the House Oversight Committee, where he leveled allegations of criminal wrongdoing by Trump. untenable at some point. . [1] His family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois, where he attended grade school. At first, he shredded incriminating files. Yet events in both 1972 and 2016 resulted in obstruction of the investigations. The couple sued and eventually reached an undisclosed settlement. He resides in Beverly Hills, California. John Mitchell, Nixon's most trusted adviser and former attorney general, had taken charge of the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRP) and authorized the Watergate break-in on 17 . The investigation revealed that Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. John W. Dean (center) with his wife, Maureen, and John's lawyer, Charles N. Shaffer, in 1974. They all would have expected to be out and that may put you in a position thats just . 171-181). They don't know what they're looking at. Hence, it is now clear that White House Counsel represents the Office of the Presidency and not the current occupant of that office. 90- 98): According to Mueller, in addition to McGahn, President Trump pressured former campaign aide Cory Lewandowski and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to curtail the Special Counsels investigation through Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the investigation. Ultimately, he became a witness for the prosecution. Fifty years later, that's how John Dean, the former White House counsel whose marathon testimony before the US Senate's Watergate Committee tipped the dominoes toward the ultimate resignation . This small piece of testimony, of course, became highly significant for it led to the discovery of the secret White House taping system. This appears to have been well understood by McGahn and his lawyer, and I have read news accounts that McGahn has explained this concept to President Trump. 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. . In 1991, the publisher released Silent Coup: The Removal of a President, which included an unfounded allegation that Dean ordered the break-in to remove information about a call-girl ring that serviced Democratic Party members. Let me briefly address the ethics question. Gjon Mili . In June 1973, as a young lawyer on Capitol Hill, I watched White House counsel John Dean testify before Sen. Sam Ervin's Watergate Committee from the row of seats behind the senators. [26], His next book, released in 2006, was Conservatives without Conscience, a play on Barry Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative. 1976); AND IMPEACHMENT OF RICHARD NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY (WASHINGTON, D.C: GOV. Former White House counsel John Dean, a key figure in the Watergate scandal that toppled former President Richard Nixon, testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled, "Lessons from . Records are described at an item level and all records contain brief descriptions and subject terms. The press statement was false. 88.). DEAN: . 1 AND 182.). Well, John Dean has a new book. After four months, however, the Watergate trial judge, John J. Sirica, reduced his sentence to time . 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. Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. "My feelings about Mr. Nixon remained the same until his death a tangle of familial echoes, affections, and curiosities never satisfied," Leonard Garment wrote in his 1997 autobiography, Crazy Rhythm: From Brooklyn and Jazz to Nixon's White House, Watergate, and Beyond.At first blush, Garment appeared an odd match for President Richard M. Nixon, the former a liberal Republican who . [29], Dean's 2007 book Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches is, as he wrote in its introduction, the third volume of an unplanned trilogy. 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. MUELLER REPORT VOLUME I: The Mueller Reports finds no illegal conspiracy, or criminal aiding and abetting, by candidate Trump with the Russians. He later became a commentator on contemporary politics, a book author, and a columnist for FindLaw's Writ. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Blind Ambition was ghostwritten by future Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Taylor Branch[20] and later made into a 1979 TV miniseries. [3], Dean married Karla Ann Hennings on February 4, 1962; they had one child, John Wesley Dean IV, before divorcing in 1970. Similarly, when President Nixon met with me on April 15, 1973, after my break with the White House, he raised the concern about the Hunt pardon again. Cognition, 9(1), 122. Anchors Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer provided summaries, commentary, and interviews to supplement each broadcast. President Nixon's aide John Dean is sworn in before the Senate committee conducting hearings on the Watergate break-in and the conduct of the Nixon administration, on June 1, 1973. 7 min read. Shortly after the Watergate hearings, Dean wrote about his experiences in a series of books and toured the United States to lecture. Silent Coup alleged that Dean masterminded the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate coverup and that the true aim of the burglaries was to seize information implicating Dean and the former Maureen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiance) in a prostitution ring. His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. [30], In 2008, Dean co-edited Pure Goldwater, a collection of writings by the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. Check out this great listen on Audible.com. In his testimony, Dean asserted that Nixon covered up Watergate because he believed it was in the interest of national security. Deans immersion in Watergate since that time has been so deep, he never imagined what his life would have been without it. II, P.117); McGahn discussed matters with others (e.g. $23.91 4 Used from $8.00 3 New from $23.91 1 Collectible from $59.95. CNN Original Series Returns to the Scene of the Crime in "Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal," Debuting Sunday, June 5. Secondly, I believe as an attorney, he has an ethical obligation to testify. First off . Why Netflix is dabbling in livestreaming, How strong is Dominions defamation case against Fox News? He is also the author of three books about television, including a biography of pioneer talk show host and producer David Susskind. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.[18][19]. [5], Dean was employed from 1966 to 1967 as chief minority counsel to the Republicans on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that Nixon authorized the break-in at Democratic headquarters. The book claimed Dean had learned about the operation from his wife. Brownell, K. (2020). Spectators laughed, and soon the senator was "sputtering mad". Search by keyword or individual, or browse all episodes by clicking Explore the Collection below the search box. While I was an active participant in the coverup for a period of time, there is absolutely no information whatsoever that Trumps White House Counsel, Don McGahn, participated in any illegal or improper activity to the contrary, there is evidence he prevented several obstruction attempts. 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. Dean had originally been a proponent of Goldwater conservatism, but he later became a critic of the Republican Party. 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. I dont think its an emotion that Donald Trump could ever muster.. [17] Dean failed to recall any conversations verbatim, and often failed to recall the gist of conversations correctly. II, P. 32); his chief of staff Annie Donaldson made contemporaneous notes of McGahns conversations with the president (e.g., MUELLER RPT, VOL. 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. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. John W. Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, reflects on the much-anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Rule 1.13 further provides that when an attorney representing an organization encounters ongoing crime or fraud, he or she must first try to solve the problem within the organization, by going up the ladder to the highest authority that can address the problem. Petersen provided Nixon with confidential information from the prosecutors and the grand jury proceedings. Paperback. "I think a criminal case is going to come out of it," Dean predicted on CNN on Tuesday after hearings by the House committee investigating the Jan . DEAN: Im not sure that youll ever be able to deliver clemency. The committee had voted to grant him use immunity (doing so in a divided vote in a private session that was then changed to a unanimous vote and announced that way to the public). He had only a limited attorney-client privilege when interacting with the President and advisors and the privilege belongs to the Office in any event. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) Further compounding the situation in 2018, in response to press reports that McGahn had considered resigning over the direction to fire Mueller, Trump asked another White House official (Rob Porter, also an attorney serving as Staff Secretary) to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a false record stating that he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. 5; 3, cl. [37][38], In September 2018, Dean warned against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the United States Supreme Court,[39][40][41] a main concern being that the appointment would result in "the most presidential-powers-friendly court" in modern times. Watergate, the Bipartisan Struggle for Media Access, and the Growth of Cable Television. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland. I met with Kutak and his commission to provide my own insights. In that position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent scandal and cover-up . It also prompts the interview subjects to note how the public based their opinions on Watergate on an agreed upon set of facts, a major difference from todays polarized and partisan media landscape. [15], Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. 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. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. When Colson relayed President Nixons positive response, Hunt pled guilty and the so-called Cuban American defendants followed his lead and pled guilty, as well. Dean did not complete the report. Im learning things that I had never known about what had happened and why it happened.. In June 1973, John Wesley Dean III, former White House counsel under President Richard Nixon, transfixed the nation with his one week of testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee chaired by . The mainstream media narrative about Watergate is a grotesque and fantastic distortion of historical fact. But the litigation gave Dean access to files from the Watergate special prosecution archives, intensifying his expertise, and he entered the pundit class that emerged when cable news expanded in the mid-1990s. 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. WASHINGTON, June 27 Following is the transcript of a White House memorandum analyzing John W. Dean's. testimony on Watergate, as read during the Senate Water gate committee's hearings to day by . 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. [17] Neisser did not explain the difference as one of deception; rather, he thought that the evidence supported the theory that memory is not akin to a tape recorder and instead should be thought of as reconstructions of information that are greatly affected by rehearsal, or attempts at replay. I was always interested in government. Former White House Counsel John Dean, who was a key figure in the Watergate scandal, arrives to testify before the House Judiciary Committee as the panel seeks to compare the investigations during President Richard Nixon's administration and that of President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill Monday. Nixon also sought to influence my testimony after I openly broke with the White House and began cooperating with prosecutors and the Senate Watergate Committee. He is mentioned in the report on 529 occasions, and based on the footnotes he was interviewed at various lengths by the FBI on not less than 9 occasions: July 24, 2015, December 11, 2015 and April 1, 2016 (thus three occasions before Mr. Trump was elected), and July 7, 2017, January 19, 2018, February 16, 2018, March 2, 2018, October 22, 2018, and March 20, 2019 (and on six occasions after Mr. Trump was elected). Speaking of Betty Gilpin, John Dean is practicing his testimony, and Mo is advising him. The coverage includes testimony from James McCord and E. Howard Hunt, two of the men arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex; John Dean, White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973, who detailed the extent of the Nixon administrations involvement in the burglary and subsequent cover-up; Chief of Staff H.R. Dean had had suspicions that Nixon was taping conversations, and he tipped prosecutors to question witnesses along this line, leading to Butterfield's revelations. 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. Featuring New Interviews with John Dean, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein . It also led to the creation of the PBS NewsHour.. Since we began, we have presented over 150 programs throughout the United States, reaching somewhere between 45,000 to 50,000 attorneys. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1965. I havent and maybe Im not creative enough, Dean said. Five men are arrested while trying to bug the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate, a hotel and office building in Washington, D.C. A day later, White . . He could be embarrassed. . 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. By April 15, Nixon tried to tell me he was kidding about finding $1 million in hush money to pay the burglar defendants to maintain their silence. His first memoir, Blind Ambition, was turned into a TV movie in 1979. His coverage of the television industry has appeared in TV Guide, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, Fortune, the Hollywood Reporter, Inside.com and Adweek. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. For whatever reason, President Trump did not follow up with the directive to fire Mueller and McGahn did not resign. 9 Jun 2017. This year Dean will be celebrating another anniversary 50 years of marriage to his wife, Maureen. WATERGATE: The Comey firing echoes Nixons firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in the infamous Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973. [28] On March 31, 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring Bush over the issue. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo. The program also includes one of the few current day public figures who can fully understand what Dean went through Trumps former longtime attorney Michael Cohen, who went to prison for tax evasion and campaign finance violations. Dean served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until Ap. [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". Dean finally replied, "You're showing you don't know that subject very well." It may further involve you in a way you shouldnt be involved in this. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. In 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Commit . The public pressure was so great, Nixon had to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. The image of her calmly seated behind her husband throughout the hearings became one of the most memorable tableaus of the 1970s. Dean was also receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving the vulnerabilities of other White House staff. 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 . (Following Coxs firing, a dozen plus bills calling for Nixons impeachment or creating a special prosecutor were filed in the House. PRINTING OFFICE, 2019). . John Dean. MUELLER REPORT RE TERMINATION OF COMEY (PP. 8. 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. 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.