. The Watergate Hearings Collection covers 51 days of broadcasts of the Senate Watergate hearings from May 17, 1973, to November 15, 1973, and seven sessions of the House impeachment hearings on May 9 and July 24 30, 1974. Transcript of White House Memo on Dean's Senate Testimony and His MUELLER REPORT RE EFFORTS TO CONTROL ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS (PP. 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. 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. [3], Dean married Karla Ann Hennings on February 4, 1962; they had one child, John Wesley Dean IV, before divorcing in 1970. 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. 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. While Nixon had a dangerous lust for power, Dean still believes the 37th president and the only one to ever resign still compares favorably to Trump. Yet President Nixon knew that offering such pardons or giving pardons to try to control witnesses in legal proceedings was wrong. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. Like Comey, Cox was charged with investigating wrongdoing by the President and his advisors and Cox refused an ultimatum from the White House to limit his access to the secret White House tapes by accepting written transcripts, prepared by the White House and verified by a near deaf senior member of the U.S. Senate, former judge John Stennis, rather than allowing Cox to listen to the tapes. 1973, Nixon fired Dean. 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 Watergate witness says Trump will be indicted in 'days' He was trying to shape my future testimony. Watergate Lawyer John Dean Predicts Legacy Of Jan. 6 Investigation Into Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. Gavel-to-Gavel: The Watergate Scandal and Public Television, The Watergate Files Exhibit, Ford Library Museum, Covering Watergate: 40 Years Later with MacNeil and Lehrer, PBS. According to Dean, modern conservatism, specifically on the Christian Right, embraces obedience, inequality, intolerance, and strong intrusive government, in stark contrast to Goldwater's philosophies and policies. 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. 171-181). He moved to Los Angeles with wife Maureen, took business courses at UCLA and worked as an investment banker during the 1980s. 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 . WATERGATE: The Comey firing echoes Nixons firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in the infamous Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973. After the burglars' arrest, Dean took custody of evidence and money from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt, who had been in charge of the burglaries, and destroyed some of the evidence before investigators could find it. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. [9], In late March in Florida, Mitchell approved a scaled-down plan. In the 1979 TV mini-series Blind Ambition, Dean was played by Martin Sheen. 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. Dean married Maureen (Mo) Kane on October 13, 1972. Dean retired from investment banking in 2000 while continuing to work as an author and lecturer, becoming a columnist for FindLaw's Writ online magazine. John Dean Predicts Criminal Case Against Trump After 'Powerful' New Testimony. His silence is perpetuating an ongoing coverup, and while his testimony will create a few political enemies, based on almost 50 years of experience I can assure him he will make far more real friends. And by early February 1974, this Committee formally commenced impeachment proceedings.) 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. He said he had found information via the Nixon tapes that showed what the burglars were after: information on a kickback scheme involving the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. It was not until it was revealed that Nixon had made secret White House tape recordings (disclosed in testimony by Alexander Butterfield on July 16) and the tapes were subpoenaed and analyzed that many of Dean's accusations were largely substantiated. Cognition, 9(1), 122. DEAN: Thats right. Dean was later incarcerated for 127 days at an Army base after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice and was in witness protection for 18 months to shield him from ongoing death threats. In the 2022 TV mini-series Gaslit, Dean was played by Dan Stevens. All except Parkinson were convicted, largely based upon Dean's evidence. Gjon Mili . Blind Ambition was ghostwritten by future Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Taylor Branch[20] and later made into a 1979 TV miniseries. 24-48): When President Trump learned that his National Security Advisor Michael Flynn lied to the FBI and others about his telephone conversations with the Russian Ambassador to the United States regarding U. S. sanctions imposed because of Russias election interference, he met with FBI Director James Comey at a private White House dinner and asked for Comeys loyalty. This is based on my count of FBI 302 reports cited in the Mueller Report. John W Dean, who served as Mr Nixon's White House . . Ex-Nixon aide John Dean testifies on Watergate-Russia 'parallels,' as On February 28, 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his nomination to replace J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. 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. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail . A former key witness in the Watergate investigation that brought down President Richard Nixon says indictments are on their way to Donald Trump. Did John Dean and John Mitchell Go to Jail? - The Cinemaholic Dean is now the last man standing from that era, He is the last connection between this nation's authoritarian past and present. Watergate-John-Dean-June-25-1973 . The New Majority on Twitter: "Watergate prosecutors & Sirica knew John In that posit. 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. Stay up to date on new exhibits, special collections, projects, and more. Mea Culpa: Rupert Murdoch Throws His Own Company Under the Bus + A The books present documents, reliable sources, and official Watergate testimony by John Dean as persuasive arguments. I dont think its an emotion that Donald Trump could ever muster.. 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. "A concern . The investigation revealed that Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. I met with Kutak and his commission to provide my own insights. Season 1, Episodes 6 and 7 of Gaslit capture the testimonies Martha, John Dean (an attorney who served as the White House counsel . All rights reserved. We believe Don McGahn is not in a conflict situation in testifying to this Committee, for his duty is to protect the Office of the Presidency, sometimes against the very person in charge of it. But Dean understands how its not so easy to walk away from the center of power. They don't know if they're a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. Featuring New Interviews with John Dean, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein . Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. And if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. He resides in Beverly Hills, California. June 1, 2022 1:43 PM PT. Dean a young, highly ambitious, Porsche-driving, tassel-loafer-wearing lawyer when he joined the ultra conservative Nixon minions ended up getting fired in 1973 once it became clear he would implicate the president in the cover-up. I began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency. Meanwhile, John Dean (Dan Stevens) was reportedly aware of the break-in plans and later tried to cover it all up. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that Nixon authorized the break-in at Democratic headquarters. His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. "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 . Watergate Hearings Audio : US Senate : Free Download, Borrow, and Dean had originally been a proponent of Goldwater conservatism, but he later became a critic of the Republican Party. 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. Again, McGahns testimony about these events, which are described in detail in the Mueller Report, are important for Congress to understand and, as noted later, claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege have been waived (because of disclosure of the Mueller Report authorized by President Trump, and the so-called crime-fraud exception to all privileges). 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. 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 . [46][47], In 2022, Dean said the January 6 Committee had an overwhelming case against Trump.[48]. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.[18][19]. This press statement put a coverup in place immediately, by claiming the men arrested at the Democratic headquarters were not operating either in our behalf or with our consent in the alleged bugging attempt. Senator Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals. You know, the Watergate hearings just over, Hunt now demanding clemency or hes gonna blow. (Following Coxs firing, a dozen plus bills calling for Nixons impeachment or creating a special prosecutor were filed in the House. I always envisioned going in and out of government. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo. 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. Since 2011, I have been using the mistakes I made as a young White House lawyer to teach this rule of ethics with a continuing legal education partner, Jim Robenalt, who is here today. The following year, he became an associate deputy in the office of the Attorney General of the United States, serving under Attorney General John N. Mitchell, with whom he was on friendly terms. Dean served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. A Woman's View of Watergate, which came out in 1975, and I will highlight a few moments. Eisenberg, MUELLER RPT, VOL. We still love each other, Dean said. What Watergate Highlights About the Jan. 6 Hearings - The New York Times He places particular emphasis on the abdication of checks and balances by the Republican Congress and on the dishonesty of the conservative intellectual class in support of the Republican Party, as a result of the obedience and arrogance innate to the authoritarian mentality. II, P.117); McGahn discussed matters with others (e.g. The burglars' first break-in attempt in late May was successful, but several problems had arisen with poor-quality information from their bugs, and they wanted to photograph more documents.