PRESIDENT: No, it would be wrong. The materials were contributed to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) by the Library of Congress in 2017. In 2006, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating George W. Bush's NSA warrantless wiretap program. His first memoir, Blind Ambition, was turned into a TV movie in 1979. 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 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. Liddy was ordered to scale down his ideas, and he presented a revised plan to the same group on February 4, which was also left unapproved. 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 . Dean has written several books related to Watergate and the overreach of presidential powers. Armed with newspaper articles indicating the White House had possession of FBI Watergate files, committee chair Sam Ervin asked Gray what he knew about the White House obtaining the files. 8. It may further involve you in a way you shouldnt be involved in this. Continue reading. [13] It was alleged[who?] The public pressure was so great, Nixon had to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. Dean had had suspicions that Nixon was taping conversations, and he tipped prosecutors to question witnesses along this line, leading to Butterfield's revelations. In a corporation, for example, the attorney would report up to the board of directors or a special committee of the board. In the summer of 1973, former White House Counsel John Dean testified as part of the Senate's investigation into the Watergate break-in. 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. Michael and John dig deep into Watergate, January 6th, and DOJ. [1] His family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois, where he attended grade school. John Dean during the filming of Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal in 2020. DEAN: . Later Nixon worked directly with Henry Petersen, the top Justice Department official in charge of the Watergate investigation, once I had broken with the White House. Chapter 14 in the book titled "The Lies, The Thefts," divulges the entire memorandum John Ehrlichman, Nixon's Domestic Affairs Advisor, wrote to Treasury Secretary David M. Kennedy and makes for an interesting read. Shortly after Watergate, Dean became an investment banker, author and lecturer based in Beverly Hills, California. Dean briefly summarizes the takeaways from Comey's testimony and discusses the response by President Trump and his lawyer. John Deans statement to the House Judiciary Committee on June 10, 2019, as prepared for delivery. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John 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. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. Reaction to Liddy's plan was highly unfavorable. Thats for sure. Dean married Maureen (Mo) Kane on October 13, 1972. First, he is a key witness in understanding the Mueller Report. [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. In addition, it has long been the rule there is no executive privilege attached to criminal or fraudulent activity. Dean's first wife is Karla Ann Hennings, whom he married in 1962. This is based on my count of FBI 302 reports cited in the Mueller Report. Each days hearings are broken up into multiple parts, which are linked together and named as such. Following my testimony before the Senate in 1973, the American Bar Association began to look anew at its code of legal ethics. Yet events in both 1972 and 2016 resulted in obstruction of the investigations. Stated a bit differently, Special Counsel Mueller has provided this committee a road map. He studied at Colgate University and the College of Wooster in Ohio before earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) .they should call the FBI and say that we wish for the country, dont go any further into this case, period. When Cox refused this arrangement, Nixon ordered his Attorney General to fire Cox, which Richardson refused to do and resigned himself. The examples that follow are illustrative rather than exhaustive, and before turning to obstruction of justice, I must make brief mention of the underlying events to place the material in context: MUELLER REPORT VOLUME I: The underlying crimes were a Russian active measures social media campaign and hacking/dumping operations, which Mueller describes as a sweeping and systematic effort to influence our 2016 presidential election. A few specific examples of the Mueller findings and the Watergate parallels (HEADER CITES ARE TO VOLUME II): MUELLER REPORT RE MICHAEL FLYNN (PP. The Mueller Report offers a powerful legal analysis that, notwithstanding the fact the pardon power is one of the most unrestricted of presidential powers, it cannot be used for improper purposes. Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. Dean served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. 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. John Dean was born in Akron, Ohio, and spent a significant part of his life in Marion. John W. Dean on the second day of testimony in front of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973. PRESIDENT: Right. 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). 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. 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. II, P. 32); his chief of staff Annie Donaldson made contemporaneous notes of McGahns conversations with the president (e.g., MUELLER RPT, VOL. Traduo Context Corretor Sinnimos Conjugao. [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. As Nixons secret tape recordings reveal, President Nixon knew the statement was false, and suspected (correctly) that his former attorney general John Mitchell had approved the operation. Senator Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals. Cooper asked Dean, whom the FBI dubbed the "master manipulator" of the Watergate scandal when he flipped to cooperate with prosecutors against Nixon, how high the bar must be for the Justice Department to pursue the charges against Trump. II, p. 1 that one of the reasons the Special Counsel did not make charging decisions relating to obstruction of justice was because he did not want to potentially preempt [the] constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. The report then cites at footnote 2: See U.S. CONST. John Dean's testimony this week before the House Judiciary Committee squarely placed the Mueller report's findings in the historical context of Watergate. 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 targets of the hacking were the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, from which information was stolen and released to harm the Clinton campaign and in turn would help the Trump campaign. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that Nixon authorized the break-in at Democratic headquarters. Nixon chose not to disclose the information he did have in order to protect his friend Mitchell, believing that revealing this truth would destroy Mitchell. Accordingly, I sincerely hope that Mr. McGahn will voluntarily appear and testify. . 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. He admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list. Shortly after the Watergate hearings, Dean wrote about his experiences in a series of books and toured the United States to lecture. Rep. Collins calls John Dean the 'godfather' of obstruction of justice, John Dean considers Watergate a roadmap for Mueller Report. I havent and maybe Im not creative enough, Dean said. 171-181). They don't know what they're looking at. 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. . Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, the last time I appeared before your committee was . This is part one of John W. Dean's testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee. In the 1979 TV mini-series Blind Ambition, Dean was played by Martin Sheen. Accuracy and availability may vary. The president lauded his efforts. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1965. John W. Dean was legal counsel to president Nixon during the Watergate scandal, and his Senate testimony helped lead to Nixon's resignation. In Starz's new Gaslit, premiering Sunday, central Watergate figure John Dean is played by Dan Stevens. President Richard Nixon speaks on the White House lawn prior to his trip to China in 1972. The Mueller Report, like the Watergate Road Map, conveys findings, with supporting evidence, of potential criminal activity based on the work of federal prosecutors, FBI investigators, and witness testimony before a federal grand jury. President Nixon's aide John Dean is sworn in before the Senate committee conducting hearings on the Watergate break-in and the conduct of the Nixon administration, on June 1, 1973. 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. 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. . Search by keyword or individual, or browse all episodes by clicking Explore the Collection below the search box. While navigating the crisis together has strengthened their bond, Dean still has regrets over putting his wife through the extraordinary experience. Well, John Dean has a new book. 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. . The words Nixon used were strikingly like those uttered by President Trump. Dean did not complete the report. 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. Deans immersion in Watergate since that time has been so deep, he never imagined what his life would have been without it. Mr. McGahn has expressed concern about being caught between two branches of government in responding to this Committees subpoena for his documents and testimony. The Watergate Hearings, 50 Years Ago: Truth Was Not Up for Debate . Brownell, K. (2020). For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. The Oval Office exchange between the President and Haldeman was on June 23, 1972, six days after the after the arrests at the Watergate complex. II, P. 52), and McGahn is the only witness that the Special Counsel expressly labels as reliable, calling McGahn a credible witness with no motive to lie or exaggerate given the position he held in the White House. (MUELLER RPT, VOL. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.[18][19]. And if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. Ultimately, he became a witness for the prosecution. 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. You have the problem of clemency for Hunt. This is a taped except of Dean as he recalled that meeting with President Nixon. His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. 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. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail .