In 1991, the publisher released Silent Coup: The Removal of a President, which included an unfounded allegation that Dean ordered the break-in to remove information about a call-girl ring that serviced Democratic Party members. He was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and sentenced to one to four years in prison. He is mentioned in the report on 529 occasions, and based on the footnotes he was interviewed at various lengths by the FBI on not less than 9 occasions: July 24, 2015, December 11, 2015 and April 1, 2016 (thus three occasions before Mr. Trump was elected), and July 7, 2017, January 19, 2018, February 16, 2018, March 2, 2018, October 22, 2018, and March 20, 2019 (and on six occasions after Mr. Trump was elected). On their second break-in, on the night of June 16, hotel security discovered the burglars. In the 1995 film Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone, Dean was played by David Hyde Pierce. Watergate-John-Dean-June-25-1973 . [28] On March 31, 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring Bush over the issue. DEAN: Thats right. But the litigation gave Dean access to files from the Watergate special prosecution archives, intensifying his expertise, and he entered the pundit class that emerged when cable news expanded in the mid-1990s. Its the White House in the remarkable city at the top of the government. McGahn decided he would resign rather than carry out the orders, not unlike Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus when they refused to fire Cox. In 1992, Dean hired attorney Neil Papiano and brought the first in a series of defamation suits against Liddy for claims in Liddy's book Will, and St. Martin's Press for its publication of the book Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. Rather I accepted the invitation to appear today because I hope I can give a bit of historical context to the Mueller Report. When Cox refused this arrangement, Nixon ordered his Attorney General to fire Cox, which Richardson refused to do and resigned himself. Dean married Maureen (Mo) Kane on October 13, 1972. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.[18][19]. An obstruction of justice conviction prevented the former White House counsel from practicing law in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. In Watergate, the lesson learned was that no person, even the President, was above the law. 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. But the CNN series is the first time hes told his story in a documentary, which drills down into how and why Richard Nixon looked for dirt on his opponents and detailed accounts of his criminal actions to cover it up. [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. II, P. 32); his chief of staff Annie Donaldson made contemporaneous notes of McGahns conversations with the president (e.g., MUELLER RPT, VOL. This is extremely important because the false information contained in "Blind Ambition" directly contradicts his sworn testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee. Had I known the trouble I was in, I would have never married her.. John W. Dean was legal counsel to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, and his Senate testimony lead to Nixon's resignation. [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. Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. [6], Dean volunteered to write position papers on crime for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968. The words Nixon used were strikingly like those uttered by President Trump. II, P. Ehrlichman said, John, youll have better job offers after Nixon gets reelected. Yeah, making license plates.. . WATERGATE: President Trump repeated efforts to have Attorney General Sessions reverse his recusal un-recuse himself to take control of the Special Counsels investigation parallels President Nixons attempt to control the FBI investigation through his former White House Counsel John Ehrlichman. [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. Blind Ambition was ghostwritten by future Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Taylor Branch[20] and later made into a 1979 TV miniseries. 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. at 257-258 (discussing relationship between impeachment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President)., Today, you are focusing on Volume II of the report. John Dean's third day of testimony at the Watergate hearings in 1973. . Shortly after the Watergate hearings, Dean wrote about his experiences in a series of books and toured the United States to lecture. The mainstream media narrative about Watergate is a grotesque and fantastic distortion of historical fact. Dean was also receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving the vulnerabilities of other White House staff. In that posit. April 6, 1973: White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with federal Watergate prosecutors. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? In a corporation, for example, the attorney would report up to the board of directors or a special committee of the board. Feb. 1, 2019. His coverage of the television industry has appeared in TV Guide, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, Fortune, the Hollywood Reporter, Inside.com and Adweek. McGahn refused to follow the Presidents order, recalling the opprobrium that met Robert Bork following the Saturday Night Massacre. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. [citation needed], Dean continued to provide information to the prosecutors, who were able to make enormous progress on the cover-up, which until then they had virtually ignored, concentrating on the actual burglary and events preceding it. 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. PRESIDENT: No, it would be wrong. Since we began, we have presented over 150 programs throughout the United States, reaching somewhere between 45,000 to 50,000 attorneys. He had only a limited attorney-client privilege when interacting with the President and advisors and the privilege belongs to the Office in any event. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. Howard Hunts lawyer sought assurances through Nixons Special Counsel Chuck Colson that Hunt would not spend years in prison if he pled guilty in the trial before Judge Sirica in January 1973. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Dean served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until Ap. And youre gonna have the clemency problem for the others. He's penned five books about Watergate and 10 books in total; including his most recent tome, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his Followers. This is a taped except of Dean as he recalled that meeting with President Nixon. I havent and maybe Im not creative enough, Dean said. I never dreamed I would have to live in this bubble, Dean, 83, said in a Zoom interview from his Beverly Hills home. 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. In the summer of 1973, former White House Counsel John Dean testified as part of the Senate's investigation into the Watergate break-in. Nixon first announced on August 29, 1973, that I had investigated the situation under his direction and found nobody presently employed at the White House had anything to do with the bizarre incident at the Watergate. Since I had conducted no such investigation, I resisted months of repeated efforts to get me to write a bogus report. The public pressure was so great, Nixon had to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. The investigation revealed that Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. Dean's testimony to the Senate the year before implicated Nixon in the Watergate affair. that Nixon's motivation for preventing Dean from getting immunity was to prevent him from testifying against key Nixon aides and Nixon himself. Mr. JOHN DEAN (Former White House Counsel): What I had hoped to do in this conversation was to have the president tell me we had to end the matter now. [14], When it was revealed that Nixon had secretly recorded all meetings in the Oval Office, famous psychologist and memory researcher Ulric Neisser analyzed Dean's recollections of the meetings, as expressed through his testimony, in comparison to the meetings' actual recordings. . Yet President Nixon knew that offering such pardons or giving pardons to try to control witnesses in legal proceedings was wrong. Nixon said, And, ah, because these people are playing for keeps, . John Dean, who served as White House counsel to President Richard Nixon and played a key role in the Watergate hearings in the 1970s, compared the findings in the Mueller report to Watergate . It may further involve you in a way you shouldnt be involved in this. Featuring New Interviews with John Dean, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein . But he was told by his immediate boss, John Ehrlichman, that his post-White House career would be difficult if he left. MUELLER REPORT RE TERMINATION OF COMEY (PP. They don't know whether to hire lawyers or not, how they're going to pay for them if they do. He shares his story in the series "Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal." It . Dean frequently served as a guest on the former MSNBC and Current TV news program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Randi Rhodes Show on Premiere Radio Networks. John W. Dean was legal counsel to president Nixon during the Watergate scandal, and his Senate testimony helped lead to Nixon's resignation. In June 1973, John Wesley Dean III, former White House counsel under President Richard Nixon, transfixed the nation with his one week of testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee chaired by . In his testimony, he implicated administration officials, including Mitchell, Nixon, and himself. President Nixons direct interference with the Department of Justice, while facially proper under his Article II constitutional powers, was for the improper purpose of obstructing the investigation. All except Parkinson were convicted, largely based upon Dean's evidence. 90- 98): According to Mueller, in addition to McGahn, President Trump pressured former campaign aide Cory Lewandowski and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to curtail the Special Counsels investigation through Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the investigation. In 2001, Dean published The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court, an expos of the White House's selection process for a new Supreme Court justice in 1971, which led to the appointment of William Rehnquist. (Following Coxs firing, a dozen plus bills calling for Nixons impeachment or creating a special prosecutor were filed in the House. Trumps demands for unyielding loyalty from staff and statements such as asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes that would overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in the state rival what was heard on Nixons tapes, but were delivered with far less discretion. Every and the District of Columbia have adopted a version of these rules. 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. Since 2011, I have been using the mistakes I made as a young White House lawyer to teach this rule of ethics with a continuing legal education partner, Jim Robenalt, who is here today. 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. Modern American History, 3(2-3), 175-198. [2] He attended Colgate University and then transferred to the College of Wooster in Ohio, where he obtained his B.A. MUELLER REPORT RE APPOINTMENT/REMOVAL OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL (PP. He places particular emphasis on the abdication of checks and balances by the Republican Congress and on the dishonesty of the conservative intellectual class in support of the Republican Party, as a result of the obedience and arrogance innate to the authoritarian mentality. We were in his Executive Office Building office late on a Sunday night when he got up from his chair and walked to the corner of the room and in a stage-whisper asked me, I was wrong to offer clemency to Hunt, wasnt I? I responded, Yes, Mr. President, that would be an obstruction of justice. As I later testified, at the time it struck me his moving across the office and whispering was to keep what he was saying from being picked up by a hidden microphone in the room. [25] Three years later, Dean wrote a book heavily critical of the administration of George W. Bush, Worse than Watergate, in which he called for the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for allegedly lying to Congress. Desperate mountain residents trapped by snow beg for help; We are coming, sheriff says, Newsom, IRS give Californians until October to file tax returns, Californias snowpack is approaching an all-time record, with more on the way, Column: A transgender patients lawsuit against Kaiser is a front for the conservative war on LGBTQ rights, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President,, Nixon hated PBS, but his Watergate scandal gave the fledgling network a major hit, From Chris Rock to the SAG Awards. Certain aspects of the scandal came to light before Election Day, but Nixon was reelected by a landslide. 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 . Its a fascinating place to see whats going on.. 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? I had some unsolicited offers that I really wanted to explore. 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. In it, he asserts that post-Goldwater conservatism has been co-opted by people with authoritarian personalities and policies, citing data from Bob Altemeyer. No one has sought to control this narrative more than former White House Counsel John Dean. 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. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. 171-181). Like Comey, Cox was charged with investigating wrongdoing by the President and his advisors and Cox refused an ultimatum from the White House to limit his access to the secret White House tapes by accepting written transcripts, prepared by the White House and verified by a near deaf senior member of the U.S. Senate, former judge John Stennis, rather than allowing Cox to listen to the tapes. "My feelings about Mr. Nixon remained the same until his death a tangle of familial echoes, affections, and curiosities never satisfied," Leonard Garment wrote in his 1997 autobiography, Crazy Rhythm: From Brooklyn and Jazz to Nixon's White House, Watergate, and Beyond.At first blush, Garment appeared an odd match for President Richard M. Nixon, the former a liberal Republican who . 6; cf. The hearings, recorded by the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT), were broadcast each evening in full, or gavel to gavel, by PBS stations across the nation, so that viewers unable to watch during the day could view the complete proceedings at home. It may just be too hot. Former White House Counsel John Dean's testimony in the Watergate investigation helped topple Richard Nixon's presidency. "[35][36], In February 2018, Dean warned that Rick Gates's testimony may be "the end" of Trump's presidency. "I think a criminal case is going to come out of it," Dean predicted on CNN on Tuesday after hearings by the House committee investigating the Jan . His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. [17] Dean failed to recall any conversations verbatim, and often failed to recall the gist of conversations correctly. [27], After it became known that Bush authorized NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense". Yes, Dean and Mo are still married. [3], Dean married Karla Ann Hennings on February 4, 1962; they had one child, John Wesley Dean IV, before divorcing in 1970. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. It also led to the creation of the PBS NewsHour.. 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. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. First, he is a key witness in understanding the Mueller Report. Continue reading. Using Altemeyer's scholarly work, he contends that there is a tendency toward ethically questionable political practices when authoritarians are in power and that the current political situation is dangerously unsound because of it. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. Deans words on tape can be heard in the British documentary TV series Watergate. That didnt happen.. Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, the last time I appeared before your committee was . And I hasten to add that I learned about obstruction of justice the hard way, by finding myself on the wrong side of the law. 88.). John W. Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, reflects on the much-anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. The Real Housewives of Atlanta The Bachelor Sister Wives 90 Day Fiance Wife Swap The Amazing Race Australia Married at First Sight The Real Housewives of Dallas My 600-lb Life Last Week Tonight with John Oliver The image of her calmly seated behind her husband throughout the hearings became one of the most memorable tableaus of the 1970s. This appears to have been well understood by McGahn and his lawyer, and I have read news accounts that McGahn has explained this concept to President Trump. Liddy presented a preliminary plan for intelligence-gathering operations during the campaign. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail . [26], His next book, released in 2006, was Conservatives without Conscience, a play on Barry Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative. a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH. II, PP. Speaking of Betty Gilpin, John Dean is practicing his testimony, and Mo is advising him. Gavel-to-Gavel: The Watergate Scandal and Public Television, The Watergate Files Exhibit, Ford Library Museum, Covering Watergate: 40 Years Later with MacNeil and Lehrer, PBS. MUELLER REPORT RE EFFORTS TO CONTROL ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS (PP. There is no one alive closer to the Watergate scandal than Dean, and now he offers a definitive and deeply personal look at the events that changed his life forever in the four-part documentary series Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal. The program premieres Sunday on CNN. John Dean's memory: A case study. And that destroys the case.. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. Haldeman and Chief . 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. In both situations the White House Counsel was implicated in the coverup activity. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. John Dean III, a former White House aide in the Nixon administration, is sworn in by Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin (D-N.C.) before testifying on Capitol Hill in this June 25, 1973. In that position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent scandal and cover-up . The Watergate "master manipulator" said the former president is in trouble after the latest revelations. I always envisioned going in and out of government. His silence is perpetuating an ongoing coverup, and while his testimony will create a few political enemies, based on almost 50 years of experience I can assure him he will make far more real friends. Check out this great listen on Audible.com. OLC Op. [Emphasis added.]. According to the Mueller Report, President Trump directed Mr. McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed on June 17, 2017, over purported conflicts of interest. 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. The day following Flynns resignation, President Trump in a one-on-one Oval Office conversation with Director Comey said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go., WATERGATE: In a like situation, when President Nixon learned of his re-election committees involvement in the Watergate break-in, he instructed his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, to have the CIA ask the FBI not to go any further into the investigation of the breakin for bogus national security reasons. Paperback. Continuous coverage of the Watergate hearings in 1973 drew big audiences and viewer contributions. 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. And politically, itd just be impossible for, you know, you to do it. On February 28, 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his nomination to replace J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. 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. Dean a young, highly ambitious, Porsche-driving, tassel-loafer-wearing lawyer when he joined the ultra conservative Nixon minions ended up getting fired in 1973 once it became clear he would implicate the president in the cover-up. Dean's first wife is Karla Ann Hennings, whom he married in 1962. [10][pageneeded]. In an exchange with me on March 21, 1973, Nixon conceded such a use of the pardon power was improper: DEAN: Well, thats the problem. 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. In Starz's new Gaslit, premiering Sunday, central Watergate figure John Dean is played by Dan Stevens. On this episode of the Mea Culpa Podcast, Michael Cohen welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. All believed that they could rely on the President to offer clemency under the Presidents pardon power. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. He has been a go-to talking head whenever a presidential scandal is brewing, and the twice-impeached Donald Trump whose desperate attempt to stay in the White House after losing the 2020 election remains under investigation has kept him busy as a CNN contributor. When Colson relayed President Nixons positive response, Hunt pled guilty and the so-called Cuban American defendants followed his lead and pled guilty, as well. The Mueller Report explains in Vol. Journalists Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Lesley Stahl also offer their recollections on the story that helped make their careers. Gjon Mili . [15], Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. 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. 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.

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