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Split Thread Watergate

BobTheCoward

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newyorkguy said:
Trump better be careful because -- probably unbeknownst to Trump -- when he starts attacking the judiciary he's attacking one of the basic foundations upon which our democracy is built. When he sets himself up, as president, as being above the law, he may find himself in real trouble.

Richard Nixon once rationalized that, when the president breaks the law it's legal. Luckily most people in government didn't buy that argument then and I don't think many will buy it now.
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Nixon was impeached...A political act.

Did Nixon actually break the law?

These were part of a different thread (President Trump: Part II), so I moved them here.
Posted By: kmortis
 
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BobTheCoward said:
Nixon was impeached...A political act.

Did Nixon actually break the law?
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Nixon was not impeached. He resigned to avoid impeachment.

Presumably, authorizing a break-in at the Watergate would be breaking the law. But here, I admit that I am far from an expert.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Nixon was impeached...A political act.

Did Nixon actually break the law?
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He was never indicted for anything, but probably obstruction of justice and some sort of misappropriation for paying the Watergate burglars with campaign funds.
 
phiwum said:
Nixon was not impeached. He resigned to avoid impeachment.

Presumably, authorizing a break-in at the Watergate would be breaking the law. But here, I admit that I am far from an expert.
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If he did order the break-in, that isn't what congress was alleging he did.
 
BobTheCoward said:
If he did order the break-in, that isn't what congress was alleging he did.
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He was pardoned. It is hard to know whether he would have been convicted for breaking this law or that, but what Congress alleged is irrelevant to whether he broke a law.

For that matter, what do you think Congress was alleging? Watergate predates me, but I know that it never reached impeachment, though perhaps it reached discussions of impeachment.
 
phiwum said:
He was pardoned. It is hard to know whether he would have been convicted for breaking this law or that, but what Congress alleged is irrelevant to whether he broke a law.

For that matter, what do you think Congress was alleging? Watergate predates me, but I know that it never reached impeachment, though perhaps it reached discussions of impeachment.
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Not ordering it. We don't have good evidence of that now.

Obstruction of justice.
 
phiwum said:
Nixon was not impeached. He resigned to avoid impeachment.

Presumably, authorizing a break-in at the Watergate would be breaking the law. But here, I admit that I am far from an expert.
Click to expand...

It was pretty clear that Nixon did not authorize or direct the Watergate break-in. What came down on his head was everything he did to cover it up, including lying, directing others to lie, destruction of evidence, etc., which in turn opened up the whole plumbers operation. Nixon could have saved himself if he had just fired some people at the beginning. And he resigned after Republican elders went to the White House and said "Go now, or you'll be impeached and convicted." Some people thought he quit to protect his federal pension as much as anything else.
 
In the summer of 1974 the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon on three charges. Obstructing justice; abuse of power; and contempt of Congress. Thirteen days later, facing probable impeachment by the Senate, Nixon resigned.

The "Smoking Gun" was an Oval Office tape of Nixon agreeing, six days after the Watergate break-in, to ask the Director of the CIA to ask the Director of the FBI to halt the investigation into the break-in on grounds of "national security." That was a bombshell because for two years Nixon had been telling the American people and Congress, he knew nothing about the Watergate break-in. In other words, he'd been lying the whole time.

I usually don't link Wikipedia as a source but I will in this case. It has an audio file of the tape. Link
 
newyorkguy said:
The "Smoking Gun" was an Oval Office tape of Nixon agreeing, six days after the Watergate break-in, to ask the Director of the CIA to ask the Director of the FBI to halt the investigation into the break-in on grounds of "national security." That was a bombshell because for two years Nixon had been telling the American people and Congress, he knew nothing about the Watergate break-in. In other words, he'd been lying the whole time.
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So he didn't lie to investigators. Does he not actually have the authority to direct the CIA to make the request? Where is the actual crime?
 
BobTheCoward said:
So he didn't lie to investigators. Does he not actually have the authority to direct the CIA to make the request? Where is the actual crime?
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Instead of derailing this thread, why not start by reading the Wiki article I linked. If you want to continue to discuss this start a new thread. I'm willing to discuss Nixon and Watergate but not in this thread.
 
newyorkguy said:
Instead of derailing this thread, why not start by reading the Wiki article I linked. If you want to continue to discuss this start a new thread. I'm willing to discuss Nixon and Watergate but not in this thread.
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I actually read it some weeks ago when I was thinking about this issue. I have not found an actual explanation of how the CIA order is not a legal order.
 
Bob001 said:
Is that you, Donald J.? Even the President must obey the law. He can't do or order whatever he wants. And in the Watergate business, Nixon apparently did not order anybody to conduct an investigation. His "plumbers" -- shady campaign operatives, some with prior intelligence connections -- conducted the break-in and other illegal activities on their own for political purposes. The CIA didn't have anything to do with it. And the CIA's mandate does not permit activity in the U.S. That's the FBI's job. You seem to have some basic misconceptions about Watergate, and about the nature of government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/timeline.html
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Nixon asked the CIA to request the FBI not look at bank information related to the robbery in Mexico. That is the smoking gun. Read your own source.
 
phiwum said:
For that matter, what do you think Congress was alleging? Watergate predates me, but I know that it never reached impeachment, though perhaps it reached discussions of impeachment.
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A key point to remember about Watergate is that it generated the aphorism "It's not about the thing, it's about the cover-up of the thing".
 
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