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Thats for sure. [5], Dean was employed from 1966 to 1967 as chief minority counsel to the Republicans on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. WATERGATE: I am aware of no evidence that Nixon was involved with or had advance knowledge of the Watergate break-in and bugging, or the similar plans for Senator McGovern. It also led to the creation of the PBS NewsHour.. This revised plan eventually led to attempts to eavesdrop on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., and to the Watergate scandal. This small piece of testimony, of course, became highly significant for it led to the discovery of the secret White House taping system. I was always interested in government. 88.). Similarly, when President Nixon met with me on April 15, 1973, after my break with the White House, he raised the concern about the Hunt pardon again. Nixon also sought to influence my testimony after I openly broke with the White House and began cooperating with prosecutors and the Senate Watergate Committee. I also told him that it was important that this cancer be removed immediately because it was growing more deadly every day. Well, John Dean has a new book. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.[18][19]. Now, 40 years later, then some, Dean will return to Capitol Hill to testify before a different Congress about a different president. Nixon vigorously denied all accusations that he had authorized a cover-up, and Dean had no corroboration beyond various notes he had taken in his meetings with the president. So this means that John Dean either lied under oath or is lying to his readers in his autobiography. Rep. Collins calls John Dean the 'godfather' of obstruction of justice, John Dean considers Watergate a roadmap for Mueller Report. Murdoch has survived scandal after scandal. John W Dean, who served as Mr Nixon's White House . 7 min read. The turning point came with the testimony of former White House counsel John Dean, whose weeklong account of Nixon's . His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution . Reaction to Liddy's plan was highly unfavorable. Eight years ago, we created a course called The Watergate CLE. No one has sought to control this narrative more than former White House Counsel John Dean. [24] Also in 2006, Dean appeared as an interviewee in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, about the Nixon administration's efforts to keep John Lennon out of the United States. Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was interested in meeting with Dean and planned to do so a few days later, but Cox was fired by Nixon the next day; it was not until a month later that Cox was replaced by Leon Jaworski. Weekend Edition revisits audio from Dean's testimony. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) I think Richard Nixon had a conscience, said Dean. In it, he asserts that post-Goldwater conservatism has been co-opted by people with authoritarian personalities and policies, citing data from Bob Altemeyer. . I would like to address a few of the remarkable parallels I find in the Mueller Report that echo Watergate, particularly those related to obstruction of justice. In June 1973, as a young lawyer on Capitol Hill, I watched White House counsel John Dean testify before Sen. Sam Ervin's Watergate Committee from the row of seats behind the senators. Secondly, I believe as an attorney, he has an ethical obligation to testify. [10][pageneeded]. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. MUELLER REPORT VOLUME I: The Mueller Reports finds no illegal conspiracy, or criminal aiding and abetting, by candidate Trump with the Russians. In July 1970, he accepted an appointment to serve as counsel to the president, after the previous holder of this post, John Ehrlichman, became the president's chief domestic adviser. Dean then served as associate director of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws for approximately two years. John Dean, former counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, testifies before the Senate committee on the Watergate hearing in D.C. on June 27, 1973. He spent his days at the offices of Jaworski, the Watergate Special Prosecutor, and testifying in the trial of Watergate conspirators Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson, which concluded in December. Modern American History, 3(2-3), 175-198. MCGAHNS DILEMMA TESTIFYING BEFORE THIS COMMITTEE. On April 17, 1973, Nixon told Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen (who was overseeing the Watergate investigation) that he did not want any member of the White House granted immunity from prosecution. I havent and maybe Im not creative enough, Dean said. Dean served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. DEAN: Thats right. First, he is a key witness in understanding the Mueller Report. And youre gonna have the clemency problem for the others. John Dean, while not a fact witness . It may further involve you in a way you shouldnt be involved in this. 1973, Nixon fired Dean. DEAN: Im not sure that youll ever be able to deliver clemency. I dont think its an emotion that Donald Trump could ever muster.. The Jan. 6 committee's hastily scheduled hearing for Tuesday "better be a big deal," said a key Watergate scandal figure. Specifically, the burglars were interested in information they thought was held by DNC head Lawrence F. O'Brien. This is extremely important because the false information contained in "Blind Ambition" directly contradicts his sworn testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee. It also came out that Gray had destroyed important evidence Dean entrusted to him. 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. LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service) After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. Because, you know, after everybody PRESIDENT: Thats right. . One of the major clarifications that came about through the new ABA Model Rules was with respect to an attorneys obligations when representing an organization. In this latest book, Dean, who has repeatedly called himself a "Goldwater conservative", built on Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience to argue that the Republican Party has gravely damaged all three branches of the federal government in the service of ideological rigidity and with no attention to the public interest or the general good. An obstruction of justice conviction prevented the former White House counsel from practicing law in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. Was he hard-nosed and tough? 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. PRESIDENT: Thats a problem. The coverage includes testimony from James McCord and E. Howard Hunt, two of the men arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex; John Dean, White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973, who detailed the extent of the Nixon administrations involvement in the burglary and subsequent cover-up; Chief of Staff H.R. Yet President Nixon knew that offering such pardons or giving pardons to try to control witnesses in legal proceedings was wrong. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. He was trying to shape my future testimony. We respect each other. Each days hearings are broken up into multiple parts, which are linked together and named as such. ". HANSEN: John Dean's testimony would prove to be prophetic - perhaps even self-fulfilling. 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. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Since we began, we have presented over 150 programs throughout the United States, reaching somewhere between 45,000 to 50,000 attorneys. The depth of Deans Watergate insights is partly due to a defamation lawsuit he filed against St. Martins Press. I met with Kutak and his commission to provide my own insights. To the extent Mr. McGahn wishes to assert Executive Privilege or the Attorney-Client privilege, he can do so, but those privileges were waived regarding the material plainly set forth in the Mueller Report. John Dean, President Richard M. Nixon's former . In 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Commit . Had I known the trouble I was in, I would have never married her.. Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. After we settled the case, I started agreeing to do television, Dean said. In Starz's new Gaslit, premiering Sunday, central Watergate figure John Dean is played by Dan Stevens. On their second break-in, on the night of June 16, hotel security discovered the burglars. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. Season 1, Episodes 6 and 7 of Gaslit capture the testimonies Martha, John Dean (an attorney who served as the White House counsel . Its the White House in the remarkable city at the top of the government. All except Parkinson were convicted, largely based upon Dean's evidence. Dean, an executive producer on the CNN project, helped wrangle some of the participants, including Alexander Butterfield, now 96, the deputy chief of staff who dropped the bombshell that Nixon had a taping system in the White House, which ultimately led to the presidents resignation in August 1974. Vintage video clips supplement Deans story in the CNN series, showing the news divisions of the three major broadcast networks ABC, NBC and CBS at the peak of their powerful hegemony in the 1970s. . [17] Dean failed to recall any conversations verbatim, and often failed to recall the gist of conversations correctly. MUELLER REPORT RE TERMINATION OF COMEY (PP. They don't know what their jeopardy is. Dean's testimony to the senators and at the 1974 trial of the chief conspirators (excepting the President) did not get him totally off the hook. But Dean understands how its not so easy to walk away from the center of power. Dean is a pretty good gem," Nixon confided to Haldeman on March 2, 1973. McGahn decided he would resign rather than carry out the orders, not unlike Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus when they refused to fire Cox. Watergate Hearings: John Dean's Opening Statement (1973) John Dean's statement 2011-04-07T03:55:01Z Maureen "Mo" Dean is known for sitting stoically just behind her husband during the . Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced and on January 8, Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served, which was four months. Senator Russell Feingold, who sponsored the censure resolution, introduced Dean as a "patriot" who put "rule of law above the interests of the president." After Comeys testimony to Congress on May 3, 2017, in which he declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation, the President decided to terminate Comey. In the summer of 1973, former White House Counsel John Dean testified as part of the Senate's investigation into the Watergate break-in. PRESIDENT: Right. Neisser, U. Continuous coverage of the Watergate hearings in 1973 drew big audiences and viewer contributions. He shares his story in the series "Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal." It . Dean cites the behavior of key members of the Republican leadership, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich and Bill Frist, as clear evidence of a relationship between modern right-wing conservatism and this authoritarian approach to governance. Dean went to Camp David and did some work on a report, but since he was one of the cover-up's chief participants, the task put him in the difficult position of relating his own involvement as well as that of others; he correctly concluded that higher-ups were fitting him for the role of scapegoat. Copyright 2008 NPR. Through his lawyer, Cohen sought advice from Dean before testifying in 2019 to the House Oversight Committee, where he leveled allegations of criminal wrongdoing by Trump. The investigation revealed that Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. Bob, as a leading legal scholar, was asked to chair an ABA commission to reconsider the ABAs Code of Professional Conduct in light of the Watergate scandal. Neither of the two volumes are formally titled, but the first sentence of the second paragraph, on page 1 of Volume II states its focus: Beginning in 2017, the President of the United States took a variety of actions towards the ongoing FBI investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 presidential election and related matters that raised questions about whether he had obstructed justice. Volume II concludes on page 182: [I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. However, the Special Counsels office was unable to reach that conclusion, so the report neither alleges criminal behavior by the president nor, as the report states, does it exonerate him. (SEE MUELLER REPORT, VOL. McGahn refused to follow the Presidents order, recalling the opprobrium that met Robert Bork following the Saturday Night Massacre. John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean did not complete the report. John Dean's memory: A case study. 74-CCC-7004)", Doing Legal, Political, and Historical Research on the Internet: Using Blog Forums, Open Source Dictionaries, and More, "John Dean's Role at Issue in Nixon Tapes Feud", "Watergate's lasting legacy is to legal ethics reform, says John Dean", "John Dean helped bring down Richard Nixon. The image of her calmly seated behind her husband throughout the hearings became one of the most memorable tableaus of the 1970s. Dean has been particularly critical of the party's support of Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and of neoconservatism, strong executive power, mass surveillance, and the Iraq War. 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. The public pressure was so great, Nixon had to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. Watergate, the Bipartisan Struggle for Media Access, and the Growth of Cable Television. First off . In his testimony, Dean asserted that Nixon covered up Watergate because he believed it was in the interest of national security. 6-7, 122-28, 131-32, 134, 147-48, ET AL):The Mueller Report addresses the question of whether President Trump dangled pardons or offered other favorable treatment to Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone (whose name is redacted so I assume it is him based on educated conjecture) in return for their silence or to keep them from fully cooperating with investigators. 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. June 25, 1973: White House counsel John Dean recounts his meetings with President Nixon to the Senate Watergate Committee: "I began by telling the President that there was a cancer growing on . He studied at Colgate University and the College of Wooster in Ohio before earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) Howard Hunt told me it would have exonerated Prez Nixon. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. 171-181). DEAN: . His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. He admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list. [15] A sharp critic of studying memory in a laboratory setting, Neisser saw "a valuable data trove" in Dean's recall. a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH. OLC Op. Further compounding the situation in 2018, in response to press reports that McGahn had considered resigning over the direction to fire Mueller, Trump asked another White House official (Rob Porter, also an attorney serving as Staff Secretary) to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a false record stating that he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. This is based on my count of FBI 302 reports cited in the Mueller Report. [4], After graduation, Dean joined Welch & Morgan, a law firm in Washington, D.C., where he was soon accused of conflict of interest violations and fired:[2] he was alleged to have started negotiating his own private deal for a TV station broadcast license, after his firm had assigned him to complete the same task for a client. "[35][36], In February 2018, Dean warned that Rick Gates's testimony may be "the end" of Trump's presidency. [44][45], In early June 2019, Dean testified, along with various U.S. attorneys and legal experts, before the House Judiciary Committee on the implications of, and potential actions as a result of, the Mueller report. 5; 3, cl. Mr. McGahn is the most prominent fact witness regarding obstruction of justice cited in the Mueller Report. Every and the District of Columbia have adopted a version of these rules. But he was told by his immediate boss, John Ehrlichman, that his post-White House career would be difficult if he left. The president lauded his efforts. Former White House Counsel John Dean's testimony in the Watergate investigation helped topple Richard Nixon's presidency. II, P.117); McGahn discussed matters with others (e.g. But I think he could experience shame. It certainly changed my career path. 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. 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. [17] Neisser did not explain the difference as one of deception; rather, he thought that the evidence supported the theory that memory is not akin to a tape recorder and instead should be thought of as reconstructions of information that are greatly affected by rehearsal, or attempts at replay. Weekend Edition revisits audio from Dean's testimony. Michael and John dig deep into Watergate, January 6th, and DOJ. In short, McGahns loyalty is to his client, the Office of the Presidency, not the occupant. I learned this fact from Robert Kutak, with whom I had a friendship from our days when we worked as staffers for Congress. Spectators laughed, and soon the senator was "sputtering mad". II, P. After hearing of Colodny's work, Liddy issued a revised paperback version of Will supporting Colodny's theory. The Watergate Hearings, 50 Years Ago: Truth Was Not Up for Debate . We still love each other, Dean said. After his plea, he was disbarred. For high school, he attended Staunton Military Academy with Barry Goldwater Jr., the son of Sen. Barry Goldwater, and became a close friend of the family. John Deans statement to the House Judiciary Committee on June 10, 2019, as prepared for delivery. Don McGahn represented the Office of the Presidency, not Donald Trump personally. Model Rule 1.13 provides that a lawyer representing an organization represents the entity and not the individuals running the entity. His co-editor was Goldwater's son Barry Goldwater, Jr.[31], Historian Stanley Kutler was accused of editing the Nixon tapes to make Dean appear in a more favorable light. Dean was born in Akron, Ohio, and lived in Marion, the hometown of the 29th President of the United States, Warren Harding, whose biographer he later became. Nine months into the mushrooming scandal, Dean bargained for immunity and won himself a lenient prison term by delivering the sensational, if deeply flawed, testimonybefore the klieg lights of the Senate Watergate committee (1973), the House Judiciary Committee (1974), and the trial of U.S. v. Mitchell (1974)that helped convict Nixon's . In the 1999 film Dick, Dean was played by Jim Breuer. Dean also told the Senate Watergate committee that if testimony by Jeb Stuart Magruder, a former White House aide, was credible, the President probably had advance knowledge of plans to break into . Deans immersion in Watergate since that time has been so deep, he never imagined what his life would have been without it. For whatever reason, President Trump did not follow up with the directive to fire Mueller and McGahn did not resign. (See Separation-of-Powers Principles Support the Conclusion that Congress May Validly Prohibit Corrupt Obstructive Acts Carried Out Through the Presidents Official Powers, MUELLER REPORT, PP. Dean's testimony to the Senate the year before implicated Nixon in the Watergate affair. He said, "It's a nightmare. When Cox refused this arrangement, Nixon ordered his Attorney General to fire Cox, which Richardson refused to do and resigned himself. [2] He attended Colgate University and then transferred to the College of Wooster in Ohio, where he obtained his B.A. The coverage includes testimony from James McCord and E. Howard Hunt, two of the men arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex; John Dean, White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973, who detailed the extent of the Nixon administration's involvement in the burglary and subsequent cover-up; Chief of Staff H.R. Dean married Maureen (Mo) Kane on October 13, 1972. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. After listening to Nixons March 21, 1973 secretly recorded conversation with me, Jaworski pursued more tapes as vigorously as had Cox. Search by keyword or individual, or browse all episodes by clicking Explore the Collection below the search box. [29], Dean's 2007 book Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches is, as he wrote in its introduction, the third volume of an unplanned trilogy. 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. But on March 21, 1973, he went to the Oval Office and told Nixon there was "a cancer " on the presidency that would take them all down they didn't . Ari Emanuel lets his AI alter ego open Endeavors earnings call, WGA chief negotiator David Young replaced due to illness ahead of key talks with studios, Hidden, illegal casinos are booming in L.A., with organized crime reaping big profits, Look up: The 32 most spectacular ceilings in Los Angeles, 19 cafes that make L.A. a world-class coffee destination, Best coffee city in the world? 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. As Dan mentioned, in the summer of 1973, former White House counsel John Dean testified as part of the Senate's investigation into the Watergate break-in. 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. As Watergate broke, Haldeman and John Ehrlichman trusted their bright attorney to control the political fall out after the burglars were arrested, part of which involved him paying them large sums of money. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland. They don't know whether to hire lawyers or not, how they're going to pay for them if they do. June 17, 1972. Gray said he had given FBI reports to Dean, and had discussed the FBI investigation with Dean on many occasions. [6], Dean volunteered to write position papers on crime for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968. 6; cf. Dean is now the last man standing from that era, He is the last connection between this nation's authoritarian past and present. If the problem cannot be solved internally, Model Rule 1.13 provides that an attorney may report out, despite his or her confidentiality, what is going on, despite his duty of confidentiality or the attorney-client privilege. Richard Nixon resigned as president the next year. Records are described at an item level and all records contain brief descriptions and subject terms. [8][pageneeded], On January 27, 1972, Dean, the White House Counsel, met with Jeb Magruder (Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CRP and CREEP) and Mitchell (Attorney General of the United States, and soon-to-be Director of CRP), in Mitchell's office, for a presentation by G. Gordon Liddy (counsel for CRP and a former FBI agent). Blind Ambition was ghostwritten by future Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Taylor Branch[20] and later made into a 1979 TV miniseries. The words Nixon used were strikingly like those uttered by President Trump. John Dean. 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. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. John Dean's third day of testimony at the Watergate hearings in 1973. .