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Speaker 1: They wanted you to believe it was an open and

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shut conspiracy. Nixon was involved and he tried to cover

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it up, but what if he was framed? Follow me

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down the rabbit Hole about Watergate. Hello, friends, and welcome

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back to the rabbit Hole. I'm your host Danny, and

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today we are talking about Watergate. Thank you John for

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requesting this episode. We decided to do this episode this

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week because we covered Cuba last week and there was

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a lot of CIA agents that were involved in both things.

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So I thought, you know what, let's go ahead and

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do Watergate this week. Before we get started, I love

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to thank our sponsors, so thank you Wise with Gold

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for sponsoring my podcast. Guys, if you want gold and

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as fifty dollars a month, go to rabbit Hole dot

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gold right now. Especially in this economy that's very unstable,

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it's good to have something like gold in your back

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pocket and a subscription. You're getting a little bit at

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a time every single month. You can start to build

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up your reserves and you're not spending a fortune. So

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fifty dollars a month totally worth it. The Watergate scandal

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was a political scandal involving the administration of President Richard

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Nixon in nineteen seventy two. On June seventeenth, nineteen seventy two,

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operatives associated with Nixon's re election campaign were caught burglarizing

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and planting listing devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters

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in the Watergate Complex in Washington, d C. But this

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scandal starts well before then. In nineteen sixty eight, Richard

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Nixon was elected the thirty seventh president. With this election,

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he promised to end the war in Vietnam honorably. This

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directly opposed Linton Johnson, who was the president prior to him,

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and the Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey, who was still for

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the war. We were in the Vietnam War for the

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same reason we were trying to sabotage Cuba to prevent

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the spread of Communists during the Cold War. Many Americans

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were against the war because we shouldn't be fighting another

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country's war. They also didn't like the draft and the

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fact that the war seemed to drag on and on

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with really no clear progress and like no clear direction.

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Not to mention that many Americans question why the US

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would align themselves with the corrupt and undemocratic South Vietnamese government.

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It seemed like a costly and unwinnable conflict with no

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clear objective. It doesn't help that the public was lied

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to with the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to

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justify entering the war, which we talked about in the

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very first episode of this podcast. Although many of them

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didn't actually know that was a conspiracy at the time,

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eventually it would come out that it was a conspiracy

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and it was proved that all those people that didn't

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believe the Gulf of Tonkin incident were correct. In order

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to end the war, Nixon secretly launched Operation Menu. This

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was a covert tactical bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia

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from March nineteen sixty nine to May nineteen seventy. This

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operation was part of both the Vietnam and the Cambodian

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Civil War. Targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and base

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areas of the People's Army of Vietnam, the North Vietnamese Army,

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and the forces of the Vietcong. Many of the places

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they bombed were used for resupply, training, and resting between

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campaigns across the border in South Vietnam, so it wasn't

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like they were ready for an attack. In information released

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much later, it seems like Operation Menu was authorized prior

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to Nixon getting into office. It was authorized by Johnson. However,

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Nixon authorized, for the first time the use of long

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range B fifty two heavy bombers to carpet bomb Cambodia.

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Operation Freedom dialmediately followed Operation Menu, which expanded the B

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fifty two bombing to a much larger area of Cambodia.

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All this was to remain a secret. However, nineteen sixty nine,

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The New York Times exposed the bombing. That's when Nixon

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ordered the wiretapping of reporters and suspected leakers. The FBI

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had some issues bugging some targets, but Nixon's domestic policy

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chief John Erlickman directly arranged the wire tapping. All of

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this was done illegally because they were trying to identify

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government leakers. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act

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of nineteen sixty nine required law enforcement to obtain a

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warrant for wire taps, but allowed exceptions for national security investigations.

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So the Nixon administration decided that these journalists, for to

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be exact, were a threat to national security. That doesn't

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change the fact that these wire taps were illegal. This

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was a huge abuse of surveillance power. He should not

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have been doing this. And in fact, over and over

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it felt like they continued to do these illegal wire taps.

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And we'll talk about it as we go throughout the episode.

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They were doing these illegal wire taps under the veil

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of like national security, when really they were just like

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taking people's rights away. But because the FBI had failed,

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Nixon was not happy with them, so he hired the

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New York Police detectives Jack Caulfield and Anthony Ulazwicks as

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private investigators. In nineteen seventy, the New York Times started

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publishing the Pentagon Papers, officially titled Report of the Office

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of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force. This top

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secret report was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara

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in nineteen sixty seven. There were about seven thousand pages

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in this report that were leaked by analysts Daniel Ellsberg,

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which exposed government deception about the war's progress. At first,

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Nixon seemed unbothered by the whole thing because this report

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was created before his presidency, and therefore wouldn't really look

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bad on him. It really looked bad for Lynton Johnson,

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but like it didn't look bad for Nixon. But Henry

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Kissinger got involved. He was the National Security Advisor and

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was pissed that his mentee, Daniel Ellsberg would release these documents.

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But also he had these backchannel communications with like other

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country that he was trying to do some like backside deals, right,

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so he didn't want them to think that we couldn't

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keep a secret. When these Pentagon papers were being leaked

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and it seemed like they were top secret or they

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were top secret documents, and they were being leaked by

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reporters all around the US, it looks like we don't

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know how to keep our top secret documents top secret.

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Kissinger did everything in his power to push Nixon into

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a frenzy about this situation, causing the Attorney General John

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Mitchell to file a restraining order against The Times holding

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the papers publication. But this didn't stop the dissemination of

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the information. The Times couldn't do it, so the Washington

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Post began to publish the papers instead. The New York

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Times case ended up in the Supreme Court who ruled

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against Nixon. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Nixon ordered his

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aid to stop all leaks by any means necessary. This

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was like a huge deal. Now, all of a sudden,

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we've got leaks, and we need to figure out where

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they're coming from. He was especially worried about the files

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at Brookings Institution on the Chenault affair. Anna Chenault served

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as the chairwoman on the Republican Women for Nixon Committee

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during the nineteen sixty eight election. Prior to Hubert Humphrey

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running as the Democratic nominee for president, Lyndon Johnson was

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running for reelection. He announced in March of sixty eight

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that he would be withdrawing from the election. He also

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announced his partial halt to the bombings of North Vietnam

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and stated his willingness to open peace talks with North

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Vietnam on ending the war. These peace talks started in

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May of nineteen sixty eight in Paris. This was before

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Nixon was elected. Nixon sought to sabotage this peace treaty.

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This peace treaty had already been in the works for

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about a year prior to the announcement from Johnson. Because

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Henry Kissinger was working in the background to try to

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end the war. The condition Ho Chi Minh had in

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nineteen sixty seven was that the US stopped bombing North Vietnam.

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In sixty six, Johnson wasn't willing to do that, but

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in sixty eight his tune had changed and he was

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willing to stop the bombing. This peace deal would have

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looked very different for the Democrats and probably would have

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lost Nixon the nineteen sixty eight election. Well, Anna Chanault

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was friends with the South Vietnamese ambassador and had even

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introduced him to Nixon in July of nineteen sixty eight.

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The South Vietnamese president did not want the Paris peace

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talks to be successful, and the Paris peace deal was

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looking like it was going to work. Chanault worked as

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a messenger from the Republican Party to the South Vietnamese ambassador,

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feeding him the information that would make them favor the

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Republican Party offering an even better peace deal if they

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would object to the American offer to cease bombing in

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North Vietnam altogether. So, through Chanlt and the ambassador, Nixon

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convinced the South Vietnamese president to sabotage the peace talks.

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All the while Chanault's film was attached by both the

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SEA and the FBI, and the NSA was intercepting South

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Vietnamese diplomatic cables back and forth, like from the ambassador

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here in America back to Vietnam. So anything the ambassador

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sent to the President, they were being intercepted by the NSA.

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They all knew exactly what was happening, and there was

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evidence of this being held at the Brookings Institution with

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the Pentagon papers being leaked in Operation Menu being leaked.

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Nixon was super nervous about the Chanal affair being leaked

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as well. He urged his aids to quote get in

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and get those files, blow the safe and get it

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end quote. So they planned to burglarize the Brookings Institution

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and get the files. Nixon's aid hired retired CIA agent E.

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Howard Hunt to help. As talked about last week, Hunt

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helped to arrange the nineteen fifty four Guatemalan COUPDETA and

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the nineteen sixty one Baya Pigs invasion, so Hunt really

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knew what he was doing. The plot escalated into a

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planned fire bombing with burglars posing as firefighters, but White

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House counsel John Deane halted the operation of course, like

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leave it to an attorney to ruin all the fun.

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Hunt didn't give up though. The team just like shifted

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their efforts to the leaker of the Pentagon papers, Daniel Ellsberg.

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I Howard Hunt teamed up with aides Bud Crow and

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David Young in the new Special Investigation Unit, and former

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FBI agent G. Gordon Lyddy also joined the team. Lyddy

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named the team Odessa, after the Nazi group. He was

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very very into Nazism. Actually, throughout all the research that

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I did, he kept trying to name things after like

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Nazi groups or Nazi invasions, like different Nazi things. He

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was probably Nazi himself. But they were ultimately called the plumbers.

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To stop all the leaks that were happening focused on Elsberg,

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they decided to burglarize the office of Elsberg's psychiatrists to

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find compromising material. This burglary reportedly failed, but I think

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that might have been a lot. I'm not sure. It

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goes back and forth because some people say it failed,

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other people say that they did get some information. So

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Hunt had hired a bey of pigs, collaborator and a

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couple Cuban exiles to help with this burglary. He said

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they couldn't find any files and staged the break in

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as an addicts rampage with the psychiatrist said Elsburg's health

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file in his office appeared to have been fingered. However,

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some other people say that there was no file on

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Elsburg at all. Liddy suspected that Hunt had his Cuban

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guys photographed the files and then sent them to the

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CIA instead of giving them to Nixon and his team.

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But because the office burglary was a failure, they planned

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to burglarize the home of the psychiatrist or Elsberg instead,

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but that plan was stopped, which they really should have

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just started with the burglary of Daniel Elsberg's house instead

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of going to a psychiatrist's office. Next, they plotted to

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discredit Elsburg by drugging him with LSD at a Washington gala.

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How very ink ultra of them, but the approval for

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this plot actually came too late, so that they never

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did drug him. They were involved in a number of

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other projects. The plumbers were assessing the investigation into Ted

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Kennedy's accident, which Nixon was pretty nervous that Ted Kennedy

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might come in as like a ringer for the Democratic Party.

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So he was very curious about Ted Kennedy and like

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what was going on there, assessing if Hoover should be

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made to leave the FBI, and forging a cable to

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link JFK to the nineteen sixty three assassination of the

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South Vietnamese president, because why not blame the assassinated president

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on assassinating a president? And they helped to discover the

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Pentagon was surveilling the White House via a leaker on

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the National Security Council, which just added paranoia to the

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already paranoid Nixon. The Plumbers schemes are often called the

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White House Horrors because of all the things they did

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or they planned to do, and most of them being unsuccessful.

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With this deception in Washington and the paranoia, the nineteen

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seventy two re election campaign came with a lot of anxiety.

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Jack Colfield, one of the New York Police Department's detectives

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that Nixon had hired as a PI, proposed a private

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sector intelligence operation against the Democrats, Operation Sandwich, where they

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get their names for these things, I have no idea

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with this operation. They wanted to gather information of the

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Democrats' financial status and sexual activities. The operation wasn't only

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to target the Democratic Party, but they also wanted to

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target the anti Vietnam War movement and the rivals within

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Nixon's own Republican Party. This operation sounded too moderate and

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they doubted Calfield's competence, so control was actually handed to G.

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Gordon Lyddy, who abandoned all of those options in favor

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for his own plan, Operation Gymstone. Lyddy was general counsel

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for the Committee for the re Election of the President,

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so they called this CRP or like creep is what

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most people dubbed it, and was put in that position

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because he was quote our man in charge of dirty

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tricks end quote. As explained by the deputy campaign manager,

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00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:15,320
this operation proposed a series of plans, with each having

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00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:19,840
their own code. So Operation Diamond involved kidnapping and drugging

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00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:25,120
likely protesters and holding them in Mexico. He wanted members

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00:14:25,159 --> 00:14:29,240
of organized crime to be tasked with this operation. That

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00:14:29,279 --> 00:14:31,120
way they could kind of like keep their hands clean,

244
00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:35,039
but the Attorney General didn't like love that idea. Operation

245
00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:38,879
Emerald was the plot to have a spy airliner trail

246
00:14:38,919 --> 00:14:42,919
the Democratic nominee. Operation Turquoise was a plan to sabotage

247
00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:46,960
the air conditioning at the Democratic National Convention. Operation Ruby

248
00:14:47,519 --> 00:14:51,399
involved planting spies in the campaign of the Democratic primary

249
00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:56,159
contenders and then the eventual winners campaign. That didn't work.

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From what I understand, they tried it, but they could

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00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:04,159
not infiltrate the campaigns. Operation Sapphire involved a vote with

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00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:08,080
sex workers to entrap Democrats at the convention so the

253
00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:11,440
Democratic National Convention was held in Miami that year, but

254
00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,759
his plot was rejected as unrealistic and expensive by the

255
00:15:15,799 --> 00:15:19,480
Attorney General. Operation Cole was the clandestine funding of the

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00:15:19,559 --> 00:15:23,720
candidacy of black women Shirley Chisholm to help her campaign

257
00:15:23,759 --> 00:15:26,639
and in turn force the other candidates to pay more

258
00:15:26,639 --> 00:15:30,039
attention to her and to criticize her more. They never

259
00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:33,320
thought that she would actually like win, but by the

260
00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:36,639
other Democrats criticizing her, they would lose the Black vote

261
00:15:36,639 --> 00:15:39,480
because they're like, oh, you're openly criticizing the only black

262
00:15:39,519 --> 00:15:42,519
woman that's running for presidency. To this operation, the AG

263
00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:46,000
told Lyddy quote, you can forget about that. Nelson Rockefeller

264
00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:48,679
is already taking care of that nicely end quote. In

265
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February nineteen seventy two, John Mitchell resigned from being the

266
00:15:52,679 --> 00:15:55,799
Attorney General to become the director of the reelection campaign

267
00:15:55,840 --> 00:16:00,000
for Nixon. When Lyddy proposed burglarizing and bugging the office

268
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:04,000
of Larry O'Brien at the Democratic National Committee's headquarters situated

269
00:16:04,159 --> 00:16:08,200
in the Watergate Complex, it said that Mitchell approved it. However,

270
00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:11,080
other people say he didn't. I mean, Mitchell came out

271
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:13,960
and said he didn't approve it, but it is said

272
00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:18,440
officially he approved it because burglarizing had worked so well

273
00:16:18,519 --> 00:16:20,720
for them in the past. They're like, yeah, we're gonna

274
00:16:20,759 --> 00:16:24,559
do it again. It hasn't worked. And actually they didn't

275
00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:27,759
only suggest the DNC headquarters to be bugged. They also

276
00:16:28,279 --> 00:16:33,120
suggested the suites of top Democrats during the Miami convention

277
00:16:33,519 --> 00:16:37,480
in the campaign headquarters of the eventual nominee. Mitchell suggested

278
00:16:37,559 --> 00:16:41,080
also bringing into Las Vegas Sun publisher's office, Hey greenspun,

279
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:43,639
But they didn't end up doing that. So at first

280
00:16:43,639 --> 00:16:46,960
they're like, Okay, let's bug the suites down in Miami.

281
00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:49,840
But Mitchell actually made like a funny joke and was like,

282
00:16:49,879 --> 00:16:52,519
as long as you remove the bugs from the suites.

283
00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:55,200
Before the Republicans get down there because the Republicans are

284
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:57,799
gonna go right after the Democrats left to have their

285
00:16:57,919 --> 00:17:01,679
National Committee down there too. So ultimately they decided to

286
00:17:01,799 --> 00:17:07,319
bug Larry O'Brien's office because then eventually whoever their candidate

287
00:17:07,319 --> 00:17:10,240
would be would move into that office and they would

288
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:13,480
have all this information. Ideally, that's not what happened. The

289
00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:16,720
plumbers recruited their Cuban friends once again for the break in.

290
00:17:17,079 --> 00:17:20,880
They planned the DNC break in for Memorial Day weekend,

291
00:17:21,039 --> 00:17:23,799
probably because they knew that everyone would be out that weekend,

292
00:17:24,240 --> 00:17:28,160
and Bernard Barker, a former CIA operative who helped Hunt

293
00:17:28,240 --> 00:17:31,480
during the Bay of Pigs invasion and who also helped

294
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:35,160
with the break in of Ellsberg Psychiatrist's office, was called

295
00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:38,920
in once again by Hunt for this burglary, along with

296
00:17:39,039 --> 00:17:42,839
Verheo Gonzalez, a locksmith and Cuban exile involved in the

297
00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:48,640
anti Castro activities, Aoheneo Martinez, also a Cuban exile involved

298
00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:53,000
in anti Castro activities, James W. McCord Junior, a security

299
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,880
coordinator for the re election campaign and a former FBI

300
00:17:57,039 --> 00:18:01,039
and CIA agent, and Frank Sturgis, a former agent who

301
00:18:01,039 --> 00:18:04,640
helped Castro during the Cuban Revolution. The first break in

302
00:18:04,839 --> 00:18:09,039
attempt happened on May twenty sixth, nineteen seventy two, when

303
00:18:09,119 --> 00:18:12,480
Hunt and seven others posed as executives in a banquet

304
00:18:12,559 --> 00:18:16,359
room located beneath the watergate. The issue arose when Martinez

305
00:18:16,359 --> 00:18:19,279
and Hunt got stuck in the banquet room overnight because

306
00:18:19,319 --> 00:18:21,680
they couldn't pick the lock. They tried again the next night,

307
00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:25,200
but failed also because Gonzalez didn't have all the right

308
00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:28,079
tools apparently, so he actually needed to go all the

309
00:18:28,079 --> 00:18:30,759
way back to Miami to retrieve his tools that he

310
00:18:30,799 --> 00:18:33,440
needed to pick the locks, which I feel like they

311
00:18:33,440 --> 00:18:35,240
should have told him that he's gonna be picking locks

312
00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:40,279
before he came anyway, So they had no success up

313
00:18:40,319 --> 00:18:42,680
till that point trying to pick locks. So they came

314
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:45,079
back the next night, May twenty eighth once again and

315
00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:47,079
actually got in that time, so they had a successful

316
00:18:47,079 --> 00:18:50,839
break in. They took pictures of the convention security files,

317
00:18:51,119 --> 00:18:54,720
and McCord bugged the phones of a staffer and of

318
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:59,039
O'Brien's secretary. However, McCord couldn't pick up one of the

319
00:18:59,039 --> 00:19:02,440
wire transmitters with his remote receiver. The wire tap of

320
00:19:02,519 --> 00:19:06,880
the staffer's phone worked but O'Brien secretary's wiretap did not work,

321
00:19:07,079 --> 00:19:10,599
but in the following weeks they recorded hundreds of calls.

322
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:15,119
Although there were many sexual conversations had most of the

323
00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:19,640
information gathered was basically just dismissed. Because they didn't get

324
00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:21,799
the information that they wanted from the break in, they

325
00:19:21,799 --> 00:19:24,640
were directed to break in again and photograph all the

326
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:28,559
documents in the office. Prior to doing this, former FBI

327
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:32,480
agent Alfred Baldwin the third, who was monitoring the wire

328
00:19:32,519 --> 00:19:35,599
taps from across the street at the Howard Johnson's Hotel,

329
00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:38,799
disguised himself as the nephew of a former DNC chairman,

330
00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:41,519
John Bailey to get a tour of the floor. Then

331
00:19:41,799 --> 00:19:45,400
Lyddy informed Hunt to break in. The break in would

332
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:48,359
be reattempted, so the team checked into the watergate the

333
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,079
night of June sixteenth. For the other break in, they

334
00:19:51,079 --> 00:19:53,720
had put tape on the latches to prevent the doors

335
00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:56,880
from locking. Obviously they did not have success picking locks,

336
00:19:57,400 --> 00:20:00,079
but for this break in, like they decided okay, they

337
00:20:00,079 --> 00:20:01,920
decided to do the same thing. But it was so

338
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:04,400
weird because instead of taping the locks vertically up and

339
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:06,119
down to where nobody would be able to see the

340
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:09,799
tape on the locks, they taped them horizontally to where

341
00:20:09,799 --> 00:20:12,160
the tape went around the door and anybody could have

342
00:20:12,279 --> 00:20:15,200
seen that the door was taped. At about one am,

343
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:19,200
Frank Willis, the security guard, started his shift. While doing

344
00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:21,519
his rounds, he noticed the tape on the garage door.

345
00:20:21,759 --> 00:20:24,640
He took it off, assuming basically like a worker had

346
00:20:24,640 --> 00:20:26,880
just left it. He didn't really think much of it, right.

347
00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:30,200
Willis then left the watergate to go have some food

348
00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:33,319
at the Howard Johnson's next door with the last intern

349
00:20:33,519 --> 00:20:36,440
who was on the DNC floor in the offices that night.

350
00:20:36,839 --> 00:20:38,480
In turn left He's like, hey man, you want to

351
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:40,799
go get some food. The two of them leave to

352
00:20:40,799 --> 00:20:44,079
go get food. Cool. Now they have free rein to

353
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:47,279
break into the DNC offices, but noticing the tape was

354
00:20:47,319 --> 00:20:50,119
removed didn't stop the plumbers from continuing their break in.

355
00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:52,720
So obviously the security guard had done his job. Good

356
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:56,480
for him. But now these burglars are still going to

357
00:20:56,559 --> 00:20:59,839
break in. So they reopened the door and then McCord

358
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:04,519
he taped the locks again the exact same way it

359
00:21:04,559 --> 00:21:07,640
was taped prior, and at the DNC office, they opted

360
00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:09,920
to remove the door from its hinges instead of just

361
00:21:10,039 --> 00:21:13,359
picking the lock. Why wouldn't that take more time? None

362
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:15,759
of it makes a lot of sense. At about one

363
00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:19,119
fifty am, Willis returns from his meal and noticed that

364
00:21:19,119 --> 00:21:21,480
the garage door had been taped again, and he called

365
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:24,480
the police. This time. He was like, something's weird about this. Baldwin,

366
00:21:24,559 --> 00:21:27,279
who was the spotter, noticed a car had pulled up

367
00:21:27,319 --> 00:21:29,240
to the building, but it was an unmarked police car,

368
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:32,480
so he didn't tell the team that this was here,

369
00:21:32,559 --> 00:21:35,400
kind of just like ignored it. He only contacted Hunt

370
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:38,480
when the officers were in the building and were turning

371
00:21:38,559 --> 00:21:41,359
lights on on different floors, and Hunt was thinking that

372
00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:43,720
it was probably just the security guard, so he just

373
00:21:43,799 --> 00:21:46,400
ignored the warning and they continued doing what they were doing.

374
00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:50,079
This time. Their goal was to take a picture of

375
00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:54,359
every single document in the DNC office and to put

376
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:56,880
that second wiretap in. The police continued moving through the

377
00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:59,559
building until they noticed the tape on the doors on

378
00:21:59,599 --> 00:22:02,160
the sixth floor, and that's when they began searching the

379
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:06,000
DNC offices. McCord and four others surrendered to the police

380
00:22:06,079 --> 00:22:09,519
under false names, while Hunt and Lyddy escaped, telling Baldwin

381
00:22:09,599 --> 00:22:11,960
to do the same it seemed kind of like a

382
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:14,799
small burglary at first glance, They're like, oh, just some

383
00:22:14,839 --> 00:22:18,759
guys breaking in here. But the FBI launched an investigation anyway,

384
00:22:18,759 --> 00:22:22,319
because that's their job getting a tip. Bob Woodward, a

385
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:25,319
journalist with the Washington Post, went to the courthouse to

386
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:28,359
cover the stories of this burglary, and he got to

387
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:31,759
just notice something strange about it. First, they were arrested

388
00:22:31,759 --> 00:22:34,680
with more than thirty five hundred dollars in cash and

389
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:39,640
high end surveillance and electronic equipment. The money was one

390
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:44,359
hundred dollar bills in sequential order, which is odd. And

391
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:46,720
one of the guys actually worked for the CIA, and

392
00:22:46,759 --> 00:22:50,119
that was odd too. This suggested that the burglary wasn't

393
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:54,880
just any ordinary crime, but that it might be political espionage.

394
00:22:55,039 --> 00:22:58,839
That's when Woodward and another Washington Post journalist, Carl Bernstein,

395
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:02,000
began connecting the burglars to people working for Nixon's re

396
00:23:02,039 --> 00:23:05,960
election campaign, The Committee to re Elect the President often

397
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,160
mocked his creep like we said. They followed the money

398
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:11,359
and discovered that campaign funds were being used for illegal

399
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:15,759
political spying, money was being laundered through multiple accounts, and

400
00:23:15,799 --> 00:23:18,240
that the break in was part of a broader campaign

401
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:22,039
of sabotage against political opponents. They were getting this information

402
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,960
from a secret source inside the government. They never said

403
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,000
who the source was. I mean it came out years

404
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:30,960
years later. For a long time, they allowed everyone to

405
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,000
believe that it was a Nixon staffer. This source, nicknamed

406
00:23:34,039 --> 00:23:38,000
Deep Throat, secretly confirmed details and guided the reporters, giving

407
00:23:38,079 --> 00:23:41,200
hints like the investigation reached high levels of the government

408
00:23:41,319 --> 00:23:44,519
and that officials were trying to block the FBI investigation.

409
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,200
The reporting from Woodward and Benstein kept this burglary in

410
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:51,000
the news in relevant, especially during a time when news

411
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,240
came and went pretty fast, and all these other news

412
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,960
sources kind of thought it was just this minor break in. Yeah,

413
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:57,680
they probably talked about it, but it wasn't something they

414
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,160
were keeping in the news. Well, the Washington Post continued

415
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,960
to post about it because Woodward and Bernstein had this

416
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:08,200
source that kept giving them information. They kept publishing new revelations,

417
00:24:08,279 --> 00:24:12,160
forcing national attention on this burglary that was considered minor

418
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,279
to so many others. They had uncovered evidence that the

419
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:20,359
Nixon administration had paid hush money to the burglars, attempted

420
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:23,960
to block the FBI investigation use federal agencies like the

421
00:24:24,039 --> 00:24:28,200
CIA to interfere with law enforcement and destroy evidence. It

422
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,119
was the work of Woodward and Bernstein that helped to

423
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:35,240
prompt the Senate Watergate Committee, hearings, a special prosecutor investigation,

424
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:39,799
and court cases against administration officials. Just weeks after Nixon

425
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,559
was sworn into office for his second term in nineteen

426
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:45,279
seventy three, the Senate voted to establish a committee to

427
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,759
investigate Watergate. The rest of that year, the Watergate scandal

428
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,559
was everywhere. The break in of Ellsberg's psychiatrists came out,

429
00:24:52,759 --> 00:24:55,960
and the fact that Nixon recorded everything that was happening

430
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,640
in his office came out, and resignations were happening everywhere.

431
00:25:00,079 --> 00:25:02,720
Staffers resigning, people were freaking out. There was just a

432
00:25:02,799 --> 00:25:05,759
lot of pressure to impeach Nixon, and a lot of

433
00:25:05,799 --> 00:25:08,640
fingers were pointed at Nixon. He had made the investigation

434
00:25:08,839 --> 00:25:13,400
incredibly difficult, claiming a constitutional separation of powers and refused

435
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:18,000
to allow his aids to testify. However, executive privilege doesn't

436
00:25:18,039 --> 00:25:22,599
extend to cover criminal behavior, and it was even threatened

437
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:25,519
that the Sergeant at arms would arrest the aids that

438
00:25:25,559 --> 00:25:28,480
refused to testify. Nixon swore he knew nothing of the

439
00:25:28,519 --> 00:25:31,720
break in, even giving a speech where he famously said, quote,

440
00:25:31,759 --> 00:25:34,759
I am not a crook end quote, although his aids

441
00:25:34,799 --> 00:25:37,599
testified that he did have prior knowledge to the break in.

442
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,240
John Dean, who was the White House counsel, told investigators

443
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,240
that he had discussed the Watergate cover up with Nixon

444
00:25:44,279 --> 00:25:47,440
at least thirty five times. Learning of the presidential tapes,

445
00:25:47,559 --> 00:25:50,720
these recordings of everything that was happening in the Oval

446
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,839
Office that Nixon had been recording himself. They were requested

447
00:25:54,039 --> 00:25:56,680
by a committee who thought that like these tapes would

448
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,079
be the smoking gun. If they could just get these tapes,

449
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,640
they get to the bottom of everything. Nixon, for the

450
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,279
longest time, refused to actually give these tapes over and

451
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,720
tell the Supreme Court rule that he had to, And

452
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,599
it wasn't long after that that the committee approved three

453
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:15,799
articles of impeachment against Nixon, obstruction of justice, abusive power,

454
00:26:15,839 --> 00:26:19,759
and contempt of Congress. However, before the House could vote

455
00:26:19,799 --> 00:26:23,000
on the impeachment, Nixon became the first US president to

456
00:26:23,079 --> 00:26:26,440
resign from office on August eighth, nineteen seventy four, making

457
00:26:26,559 --> 00:26:29,359
Vice President Gerald Ford the President of the United States.

458
00:26:29,599 --> 00:26:34,039
But what if this was all an elaborate plan to

459
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,640
get the president out of office. It seems far fetched

460
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,000
and odd, but there's a lot of evidence here. This

461
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,000
break in happens in June of nineteen seventy two, during

462
00:26:44,039 --> 00:26:46,960
the election year. The information being put out by Woodward

463
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:50,000
and Bernstein, who were instrumental in keeping this in the

464
00:26:50,039 --> 00:26:53,160
press and prompting the Senate to create a committee, was

465
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,960
coming out before the election, and Nixon still won the

466
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,640
election by a landslide, one of the biggest landslides in

467
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:05,279
presidential history. Like when people talk about landslides and elections besides,

468
00:27:05,319 --> 00:27:09,799
like Ronald Reagan, Nixon's one of those that everyone talks about.

469
00:27:10,039 --> 00:27:14,160
He was the popular candidate to win presidency, and yet

470
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,559
he was forced to resign or get impeached just two

471
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:22,160
years in due to this scandal. The scandal run almost

472
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:26,200
entirely by the CIA, because the Cuban Americans had been

473
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:29,319
recruited by the CIA for several things up to that point,

474
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:33,119
mostly to do with Cuba. Hunt was CIA. James McCord

475
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,400
was CIA. The only person in this whole thing that

476
00:27:35,519 --> 00:27:38,759
wasn't CIA was Gordon Lyddy, who was FBI, and he

477
00:27:38,799 --> 00:27:41,240
was only FBI because he got a favor. The break

478
00:27:41,279 --> 00:27:43,839
in seemed just like way too risky for the reward. Right,

479
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,400
they did have one wire tap, they had pictures of

480
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:49,000
some of the documents. They weren't really getting anything from

481
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,240
the wiretap that they did have, So what made them

482
00:27:51,279 --> 00:27:54,119
think that getting pictures of all the other documents and

483
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,279
getting the wire tap in the other phone would actually

484
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,200
work this time? They would actually get a smoking gun?

485
00:27:58,319 --> 00:28:00,920
What was the point? I mean, honestly, up until this point,

486
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,359
people debate that all the time, we still don't know

487
00:28:03,759 --> 00:28:06,319
why they were actually in the office. They went back

488
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,440
into the DNC office after failing the first time and

489
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,279
being somewhat successful the second time, in hopes to get

490
00:28:12,319 --> 00:28:15,759
pictures of all documentation and get the second wire tap

491
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,839
up and working. This time, plus the first time they

492
00:28:18,839 --> 00:28:21,279
had gotten away with the break in, but this time

493
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,960
it all seemed like so sloppy, almost like they wanted

494
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,440
to get caught, from the way that they taped the

495
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,359
doors open where you could literally see the tape, to

496
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:33,240
the way they didn't listen to their lookout they took

497
00:28:33,279 --> 00:28:36,400
the door off the hinges the way. They immediately surrendered

498
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:38,799
to law enforcement and pleaded guilty. They didn't call in

499
00:28:38,839 --> 00:28:42,519
any favors from the FBI, the CIA, or anybody to

500
00:28:42,519 --> 00:28:44,440
sweep this under the rug. They didn't call CREEP, they

501
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,039
called nobody. They just like waited as if they were

502
00:28:47,079 --> 00:28:50,440
supposed to take the fall for this, like they were

503
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:52,920
supposed to get caught. But let's back up a little

504
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,000
bit here. Lyddy had showed up at CREEP in December

505
00:28:56,039 --> 00:28:58,400
of nineteen seventy one, after basically being kicked out of

506
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,200
his other post, announced that he had been promised at

507
00:29:01,279 --> 00:29:05,160
least half a million dollars for his Gymstone plan. Jed MacGruber,

508
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,480
who was the interim director of CREEP, waiting for Mitchell

509
00:29:09,599 --> 00:29:12,480
to resign as Attorney General and then come head up CREEP.

510
00:29:12,559 --> 00:29:16,279
He basically told Liddy he doesn't control the money, he

511
00:29:16,319 --> 00:29:19,359
can't authorize any amount of money for this intelligence plan.

512
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,279
That they needed to go to John Mitchell and get

513
00:29:22,359 --> 00:29:25,079
the authorization. John Mitchell at the time was still the AG.

514
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:27,599
So they go over there. He ends up receiving like

515
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:33,480
a quarter million dollars and Mitchell says, do your thing. Allegedly. Eventually,

516
00:29:33,839 --> 00:29:36,880
obviously part of the plan was approved because they did

517
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,920
break into the Watergate. It's unclear who actually approved it.

518
00:29:40,039 --> 00:29:43,200
Magruder swears Mitchell did. However, Mitchell and there was like

519
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,160
a third guy in the meeting who I guess was

520
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,960
a loyalist to Mitchell says that he didn't approve it.

521
00:29:48,119 --> 00:29:50,160
I don't know, goes back and forth. But after the

522
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,160
arrest of the five burglars at Watergate, only the members

523
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,160
of CREEP knew of this plan. Neither Nixon nor any

524
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,279
of his senior staff had ever met Liddy, nor had

525
00:30:00,279 --> 00:30:02,519
they had any idea of his plan up to this point,

526
00:30:02,839 --> 00:30:06,680
but the CIA did. Liddy was fired from CREEP after

527
00:30:06,799 --> 00:30:09,880
the arrests, but was later indicted for his role along

528
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:12,759
with the five burglars and Howard Hunt. And though he

529
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,079
had been the mastermind behind the intelligence plan to begin with,

530
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:18,799
he was not the guy behind the cover up. So yes,

531
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:23,759
Gordon Liddy planned this break in. However, when the break

532
00:30:23,839 --> 00:30:27,759
in fell apart, the cover up came. The cover up

533
00:30:27,759 --> 00:30:31,119
happened because John Dean, the president's lawyer, took matters into

534
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:34,400
his own hands, the same John dene that would eventually

535
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,119
go on to try to save himself during this cover

536
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:38,680
up and be like, oh, yeah, I talked to Nixon

537
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,359
about this plan, like thirty five different times that John Dean.

538
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:44,839
Dean joined the Nixon staff in nineteen seventy and was

539
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,720
relatively unimportant because of his title White House counsel, he

540
00:30:48,759 --> 00:30:51,400
got away with a lot of things, mostly under the

541
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,079
radar because no one was really paying any attention to him.

542
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,200
He not only recruited Liddy to prepare his Gemstone Plan,

543
00:30:57,519 --> 00:31:01,599
but was also present in the Attorney General's office when

544
00:31:01,599 --> 00:31:05,200
the plan was presented. He then took on responsibility of

545
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,799
the cover up to try to not have this burglary

546
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,400
tie back to Nixon and his senior staffers, when in

547
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:13,960
reality he was also just trying to cover his own butt.

548
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,799
He was later disbarred for his actions, which included encouraging

549
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,759
others to commit perjury, destroying evidence retrieved from Hunt's safe,

550
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,400
embezzling four thousand dollars of campaign funds to pay for

551
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:28,480
his honeymoon, and authorizing the distribution of hush money to

552
00:31:28,559 --> 00:31:32,279
the burglars. All the things that the reporters were saying

553
00:31:32,279 --> 00:31:34,920
were Nixon's things that Nixon was doing, that Nixon's re

554
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,240
election campaign was doing, which ties it to Nixon, It

555
00:31:38,279 --> 00:31:41,519
was actually John Dean the entire time doing all of

556
00:31:41,519 --> 00:31:43,720
those things. So this whole cover up was really just

557
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:45,880
to save his own ass. All the while, you have

558
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,839
Mark Felt, the associate director of the FBI, feeding information

559
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,559
to the journalists Woodward Bernstein under the source name Deep Throat,

560
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,160
of the whole event, making it look like Nixon was

561
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,519
behind it, when in fact it was Dean who put

562
00:31:58,599 --> 00:32:01,240
the wheels in motion and who had been laundering and

563
00:32:01,279 --> 00:32:05,000
embezzling funds. Then, when the cover up collapsed in nineteen

564
00:32:05,039 --> 00:32:07,960
seventy three, Dean was the first person to run to

565
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,039
the prosecution looking for immunity in exchange for information. He

566
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,000
was like, I know all the information, just make sure

567
00:32:15,039 --> 00:32:17,480
I don't go to jail. Actually, he ended up not

568
00:32:17,519 --> 00:32:20,119
going to jail. He was going to testify against other

569
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,240
creep officials, but when no immunity offer was put on

570
00:32:23,279 --> 00:32:26,559
the table, he changed his story to accusing Nixon's closest

571
00:32:26,559 --> 00:32:29,480
aids of supporting his cover up plans. Finally, he had

572
00:32:29,519 --> 00:32:32,000
a friend get in contact with the Senate Irvin Committee,

573
00:32:32,039 --> 00:32:35,759
who did finally give him immunity in exchange for testimony

574
00:32:35,799 --> 00:32:38,480
against his former colleagues, causing him to become this like

575
00:32:38,599 --> 00:32:42,160
star witness and portraying himself as this whistleblower instead of

576
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,000
the mastermind, which is how the FBI saw him and

577
00:32:46,039 --> 00:32:48,839
what he actually was. But even to this day, he

578
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,119
still maintains this like innocence about him. He like writes

579
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,039
books and he does all these things because he's like, no, no, no,

580
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:57,599
I was the whistleblower. I was the guy that told

581
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,640
everybody what was going on, told everybody about this cover Dude,

582
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,359
you were behind the cover up. As mentioned before, the

583
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:07,839
FBI's associate director, Mark Felt was the source for the

584
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:12,880
journalist's information. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein weren't just lucky.

585
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,119
They weren't just randomly picked by the FBI's associate director.

586
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,240
It was planned out that they would be the guys

587
00:33:19,279 --> 00:33:23,079
to get this information out. So Bob Woodward attended Yale

588
00:33:23,319 --> 00:33:26,759
on an an ROTC scholarship and was a member of

589
00:33:26,839 --> 00:33:30,079
the Book and Snakes Secret Society. He then was commissioned

590
00:33:30,119 --> 00:33:33,480
into the Navy, where he was a communication officer. There

591
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,720
were some rumors that he was an intelligence officer, but

592
00:33:36,839 --> 00:33:40,400
he actually specifically said no, I was never an intello

593
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,759
like I promise, so take that as you may. When

594
00:33:43,759 --> 00:33:45,880
he got out of the Navy in August, nineteen seventy,

595
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:49,119
he was admitted to Harvard Law School, but chose not

596
00:33:49,319 --> 00:33:52,960
to attend and instead applied to the Washington Post. While

597
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,799
taking graduate courses in Shakespeare in international relations, he was

598
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,119
dropped from the Post for not having enough experience, but

599
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,319
after a year at another paper, he was hired back

600
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,519
at the Post. Baby reporter. This guy like did not

601
00:34:06,559 --> 00:34:08,719
have very much experience. One year of experience somewhere else,

602
00:34:09,639 --> 00:34:12,639
new baby journalist. This same guy just so happened to

603
00:34:12,639 --> 00:34:15,800
be assigned to the Watergate Burglery alongside another noviicge reporter,

604
00:34:16,159 --> 00:34:20,960
Carl Bernstein. Bernstein's background isn't as a parent like with Wood,

605
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:22,559
where we're like, okay, you were in the Navy. You

606
00:34:22,599 --> 00:34:25,320
had the secret society background, like there's a lot of

607
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:28,559
secret societies at Yale, Like you've got a lot going on.

608
00:34:29,079 --> 00:34:32,639
Carl was a little more subtle. He was a journalist

609
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:35,840
for his school paper than like a local paper. After

610
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,559
high school, however, the local paper wanted him to have

611
00:34:38,599 --> 00:34:41,159
a degree, so he went to the University of Maryland

612
00:34:41,159 --> 00:34:44,079
College Park, where he was a reporter for the school's

613
00:34:44,079 --> 00:34:47,320
paper there as well, but he was dismissed for having

614
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:49,639
bad grades. He then went on to become a full

615
00:34:49,639 --> 00:34:51,960
time reporter for a paper in New Jersey, where he

616
00:34:52,039 --> 00:34:55,360
won a prize in an investigative reporting. He left New

617
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,079
Jersey and began working for the Washington Post in nineteen

618
00:34:58,119 --> 00:35:00,679
sixty six, so he had been at the Post longer

619
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,800
than Wouldward. The only thing that I can point to

620
00:35:03,079 --> 00:35:06,159
for Bernstein is that he was born to a secular

621
00:35:06,199 --> 00:35:09,400
Jewish family, which I hate to say, like it's because

622
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:12,039
he's a Jew, But that's kind of like the only

623
00:35:12,039 --> 00:35:15,559
thing in his background that we've got going for us

624
00:35:15,679 --> 00:35:18,199
as to why they would choose him. His parents were

625
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,079
activists and they were part of the Communist Party USA

626
00:35:21,119 --> 00:35:24,800
in the nineteen forties, so that could also play a role.

627
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,239
But again, Woodward's background is a little bit more imperent

628
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:30,960
as to why they would choose him. Maybe Bernstein just

629
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,159
got lucky, but I doubt it. Either way, these young

630
00:35:34,199 --> 00:35:37,280
guys were chosen to cover this. Not only that, they

631
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:41,159
were also chosen to be given the information from the

632
00:35:41,199 --> 00:35:43,960
secret source from the FBI, Like, what are the odds

633
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,199
of that? Right? The FBI and CIA needed this information

634
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:50,599
to stay relevant to stir the pot. They probably thought

635
00:35:50,599 --> 00:35:53,360
that by doing this before the election, that Nixon wouldn't

636
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:57,719
get elected, which was not the case, and they probably

637
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:01,199
thought that by doing all this before the election, Nixon

638
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,280
wouldn't get elected, then it's no problem at all. But

639
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:06,840
because he did win and by such a landslide, like

640
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:10,239
he was so popular, they needed to continue to run

641
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:12,280
his name through the mud. They needed to get him

642
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:15,559
out of office. And what better way to sway the

643
00:36:15,599 --> 00:36:17,880
court of public opinion than to use the paper, the

644
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:21,719
people's source of news, the propaganda machine. This is where

645
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:25,199
everybody's getting all their news. People aren't second guessing what

646
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:27,239
the government's pushing them. I mean, maybe a little bit

647
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,880
now because JFK has been assassinated, but not to the

648
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,880
point that we do today. The reputation of these journalists

649
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:36,960
moving forward was that they were two of the best

650
00:36:37,039 --> 00:36:39,840
journalists in the industry, but they didn't find any leads

651
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,519
for themselves, Like they were literally handed every single piece

652
00:36:43,559 --> 00:36:45,800
of information and then they just like wrote about it.

653
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,280
They didn't give officials any information that they didn't already have,

654
00:36:49,639 --> 00:36:51,639
and in fact, they're only reporting on what they had

655
00:36:51,679 --> 00:36:53,800
already known because officials were giving it to them. And

656
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:55,840
that's all the information they got from deep throat I

657
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,400
mean deep throat would say like, hey, follow the money,

658
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:00,639
or you need to dig a little bit further into this,

659
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:02,400
and they would and then they'd write about it. But

660
00:37:02,519 --> 00:37:06,760
by the FBI giving this information or like little nuggets

661
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,920
of information, they basically guaranteed that Woodward and Bernstein would

662
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,360
report about it. And because Watergate was so big, they

663
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:16,599
kept posting it, kept posting it, kept putting it out

664
00:37:16,639 --> 00:37:20,400
in the newspaper. But why would the intelligence complex be

665
00:37:20,559 --> 00:37:24,360
involved in this? Because they didn't like Nixon. There was

666
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,960
a huge strain on the relationship between the intelligence community

667
00:37:28,159 --> 00:37:31,000
and the Nixon administration, and it was no secret that

668
00:37:31,039 --> 00:37:33,639
there was all this beef in Washington. Nixon knew this

669
00:37:33,679 --> 00:37:35,880
because all the leaks that had happened during his first

670
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,960
term as president. He was on edge because of information

671
00:37:39,119 --> 00:37:42,039
leaking to the press. He knew much of the federal

672
00:37:42,079 --> 00:37:46,960
bureaucracy was politically hostile to him. The issues with the

673
00:37:47,039 --> 00:37:50,280
FBI started when Hoover died in nineteen seventy two. I

674
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,760
would okay, I wouldn't say they started then, but that's

675
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,280
when things really ramped up. The FBI had been run

676
00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:00,440
by Jagor Hoover for decades from nineteen thirty five until

677
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,559
his death in nineteen seventy two. After his death, the

678
00:38:03,639 --> 00:38:07,000
FBI was going through this leadership uncertainty. During this time,

679
00:38:07,079 --> 00:38:11,679
the Nixon administration attempted to influence investigations. It makes me

680
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,519
wonder if they were testing, like who would be loyal

681
00:38:14,599 --> 00:38:17,360
to them and was going to put that person into leadership,

682
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,679
which is why they're trying to influence investigations. But also

683
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,360
some people point to this as the reason that Mark

684
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:26,480
felt was spilling information to the Post. Mark wanted to

685
00:38:26,559 --> 00:38:29,239
be the director of the FBI and was passed up,

686
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:31,599
so he was trying to point the finger at Nixon

687
00:38:31,679 --> 00:38:34,960
for Watergate, which is why Woodward allowed everyone to believe

688
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:37,760
that his source was a Nixon staffer. The thing about

689
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:41,039
this is that it seems more opportunistic instead of like

690
00:38:41,079 --> 00:38:45,159
the real reason behind the sabotaging of the sitting president. Yes,

691
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,280
it was a bonus that he got to take out

692
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,079
some of his own frustrations of getting passed over for

693
00:38:50,119 --> 00:38:54,079
the director, but not the main reason they were doing it.

694
00:38:55,079 --> 00:38:57,880
Other people believe Mark got involved in this way because

695
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,519
he wanted to protect the FBI's independence, their investigations and

696
00:39:01,559 --> 00:39:06,119
the Nixon and Nixon's administration was overstepping, so they decided

697
00:39:06,159 --> 00:39:10,119
to frame him. Again, seems more opportunistic and not the

698
00:39:10,159 --> 00:39:13,519
real reason, because so many presidents have gotten involved in

699
00:39:13,599 --> 00:39:18,280
investigations when they absolutely should not have, and the FBI

700
00:39:18,639 --> 00:39:21,320
didn't feel the need to frame them in the same

701
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:25,000
way only Nixon. So yes, maybe part of the reason,

702
00:39:25,119 --> 00:39:27,519
but again I don't think that's the whole reason. Some

703
00:39:27,599 --> 00:39:32,559
of the media reasons the intelligence community may have had

704
00:39:32,599 --> 00:39:34,599
it out for him is because he was trying to

705
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:38,800
centralize foreign policy decision making inside the White House instead

706
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,880
of relying heavily on the traditional intelligence bureaucracy. They limited

707
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:48,440
information share with some agencies, conducted diplomacy through secret channels,

708
00:39:48,679 --> 00:39:52,280
and used the National Security Council staff more heavily than

709
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,760
ever before, which is where Henry Kissinger was well. The

710
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,519
CIA and the FBI don't only answer to the president,

711
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:00,800
They answer to the deep state and the people above

712
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:03,639
the president. They work for more people than just whoever

713
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:07,039
runs the country. So Nixon shutting them out created this

714
00:40:07,199 --> 00:40:10,440
issue for the deep state for everyone else that's also

715
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:13,280
relying on this information. They didn't have access to the

716
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:16,280
information that they used to during the Watergate scandal. The

717
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:18,599
White House attempted to limit the scope of the FBI

718
00:40:18,639 --> 00:40:21,880
inquiry as part of the cover up. They wanted to

719
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:25,000
use a CIA to tell the FBI the matter involved

720
00:40:25,079 --> 00:40:28,559
national security. Of course, they didn't realize this was a

721
00:40:28,639 --> 00:40:31,719
joint effort involving both the CIA and the FBI. But

722
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,880
another reason that I learned about when I talked to

723
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,840
Jeff Shepherd on this topic is that Nixon was doing

724
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,719
a lot in communities throughout the US. He was really

725
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:46,840
uniting people, and that is really dangerous when you're trying

726
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,960
to usher in a new world order, when you're trying

727
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:53,000
to create chaos to get people to want the government more.

728
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:56,360
He was creating this unity, and I'm wondering if that

729
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:58,519
was another reason that they were like, he's gotta go.

730
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,599
It's interesting to me that for years they tried to

731
00:41:01,639 --> 00:41:04,639
say the conspiracy was that Nixon was involved, and then

732
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,800
tried to cover up his involvement. But the true conspiracy

733
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,880
is that Nixon was never involved and was actually framed

734
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,639
to look guilty and resigned from his second term with

735
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:17,000
everyone believing that he was guilty. Nixon pissed off the

736
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:20,119
wrong people, and he paid for it. Now I'm not

737
00:41:20,119 --> 00:41:21,960
trying to say that he was like a saint or anything.

738
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:24,760
He messed up in a lot of ways, but maybe

739
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:28,559
Watergate was not one of them. But that's up to you.

740
00:41:28,639 --> 00:41:31,840
What do you think was Nixon involved or was he framed?

741
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:34,559
You can leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify and

742
00:41:34,679 --> 00:41:37,199
until next week, my friends, Stay Skeptical, and I will

743
00:41:37,199 --> 00:41:39,559
see you all then. Hey, friends. The rabbit Hole is

744
00:41:39,599 --> 00:41:42,800
an independent podcast run by me Danny Mercy. Special thanks

745
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,519
to Lindsay for research assistance and Devela Miles Media for

746
00:41:45,679 --> 00:41:48,320
editing and social media work. If you love the podcast,

747
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:50,360
please leave us a five star review and share it

748
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:52,639
with your friends. Find our socials at rabbit dot Hole

749
00:41:52,679 --> 00:41:56,039
podcast or our website at Stay Skeptical dot com