August 9, 2016 will be the 42nd anniversary of President Richard Milhous Nixon’s resignation from the Office of President of the United States. Nixon resigned because he knew that his opponents in the House of Representatives and Senate believed that he was guilty of obstruction of justice in the Watergate burglary scandal.
Six of the seven members of Nixon’s White House staff who carried out the burglary of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972 had many years of experience working for the CIA. Two members of this burglar team had held leadership positions with the CIA. Nixon was also in charge of Operation 40, a CIA counterintelligence group in 1960. As was shown in the Valarie Plame incident, it was Nixon’s duty as president to do all he could to keep the names and activities of these former CIA agents secret.
On the June 23, 1972 “smoking-gun” tape, Nixon approved a plan to order the FBI to curtail its investigation of the Watergate burglars. According to Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, proposing this plan constituted obstruction of justice by President Nixon. What Jaworski and most other Watergate investigators didn’t realize was that the FBI actually carried out Nixon’s order and did in fact curtail its investigation of the Watergate burglars.
The FBI’s final report never mentioned the burglars’ connections to the CIA and the FBI’s final report never determined what the burglars were looking for at the DNC. The burglars were convicted of attempted burglary and attempted wiretapping. Most of the other Watergate conspirators were convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Only one specific crime was mentioned in the FBI’s final report. One Watergate conspirator was convicted of two misdemeanors for distributing illegal political campaign literature. The FBI produced no proof that the burglary was committed for political purposes.
Nixon never stonewalled. When he disagreed with a special prosecutor’s request, he legally went through the U.S. court system. In addition, President Obama has proven on many occasions that no order given by a president is inappropriate or illegal until the courts and finally the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the president’s order was inappropriate or illegal. When the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon had to turn over his private taped conversations on July 24, 1974, Nixon complied immediately. However, it should be pointed out that the Supreme Court’s order was unconstitutional. Under the United States Constitution, everything that a president says or does is considered to be legal until challenged in the courts. The Supreme Court cannot issue a search and seizure order based on an assumption that a president might have done something illegal.
The FBI’s final report contained no evidence that Nixon knew about or took part in the Watergate burglary. Nixon won elections because he was popular with the voting public not because he used illegal campaign tactics. When Nixon ran for a second term in California’s 12th Congressional District in 1948, he won both the Republican and Democratic primaries and received 88 percent of the popular vote. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952 with 60 percent of the popular vote. California’s retiring U.S. senator, who was a Democrat, endorsed Nixon. Nixon was reelected as president of the United States in 1972 with 60 percent of the popular vote.
Nixon was between a rock and a hard place. His lawyers could not mention the burglars’ connections with the CIA to the U.S. Supreme Court. This meant that protecting national security secrets could not be claimed by Nixon’s lawyers. This resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ordering Nixon to give all of his subpoenaed taped White House conversations to the Watergate special prosecutor.
When Jaworski released the “smoking-gun” tape to the media on August 5, 1974, Nixon knew that his political opponents in the U.S. House of Representatives would impeach him and force a trial in the U.S. Senate. For national security reasons, Nixon’s lawyers could not present the evidence that would prove Nixon’s innocence in a Senate trial. Nixon therefore chose to resign.
Kenneth Berwick is a retired teacher who lives in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
