After 44 years, anyone can read the document that led to the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
The National Archives released Wednesday the long-sealed “road map” report that was sent to the House Judiciary Committee containing the evidence against President Nixon.
The “Sirica road map,” named for then-Chief Judge John J. Sirica of the D.C. District Court, who approved the creation of the findings and the sending of them to lawmakers, was first filed under seal from the public 44 years ago. Prosecutor Leon Jaworski sent the report with the findings to Congress, which provided evidence concerning Nixon’s associates breaking into Democratic National Committee offices and the cover-up thereafter that became known as the Watergate scandal.
Four petitions were filed requesting the document be made public, because petitioners say the document could offer special counsel Robert Mueller guidance as to whether or not make his findings in the Russia election meddling investigation public. There are historic parallels, the petitioners say, to the current probe.
Deana El-Mallawany, the attorney for one of the groups that that filed suit to petition for the Watergate document’s release, said “the road map is a critical historical precedent for ensuring that the facts uncovered in special counsel Mueller’s investigation become public and serve as the basis for whatever accountability is necessary. Our democracy depends on it.”
The report is a two-page summary describing the allegations against Nixon and his associates, followed by 53 numbered statements and 97 supporting documents including interviews and tapes. The substance of the report has been public for many years, but how it was conducted was under seal. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the D.C. District Court ordered the National Archives and Records Administration to release the report with limited redactions.
Stephen Bates, a Las Vegas professor who co-wrote the Kenneth Starr report concerning President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, tried to study the report when he was the prosecutor in 1997, but the National Archives told him it was not publicly available.
Bates said the report sets a precedent for how to conduct investigations, which go through the House of Representatives, in an interview to the Washington Post.
“If Mueller could say, ‘We have structured this report the way Leon Jaworski did in 1974, and Judge Sirica approved it,’ that might be persuasive in this case,” he said.
Jaworski wrote in his 1976 memoir, “There were no comments, no interpretations and not a word or phrase of accusatory nature. The ‘road map’ was simply that—a series of guideposts if the House Judiciary Committee wished to follow them.”
