In November of 1972, President Richard Nixon became president for the second time. While beginning his second term a group of burglars went into the Democratic Party's’ national headquarters which was in the Washington's Watergate complex. It is said that Nixon had given the men instruction to rob to Democratic before they became powerful. The Burglary was successful but the men left clues that made the government officials suspicions. Therefore, they began a research and investigation to find out what had happened at Watergate. After this became a big news story, Nixon, and his administration tried to cover up the burglary and everything that connected to it. In addition, while investigating several were doubting Nixon and believed he was …show more content…
While inspecting Nixon, the Jaworski came to know that the president had secretly taped the conversation that took place in the Oval Office with other officials. In the tapes, Nixon, and the seven burglars were detected. As a result, Jaworski filed a mandate that would secure all the tapes that somehow connected to the criminal investigation. After reviewing the tapes the grand jury finally in March 1974, charged Nixon for seven relations of the president being part of the co-conspiracy of the Washington's Watergate scandal. Nixon was then told to release the tapes but he refused and stated that it was his executive privilege to conceal private information. Once the case went further to the Supreme Court, they negotiated with two issues. The first one stated, “the power of the judiciary as the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution”(Teaching American History). The second one, related to the power of the president and what privileges the president was granted which included the right to conceal the important information that was relevant to a criminal investigation. On July 8, 1974, the court case began which involved the president, the special prosecutor, and the Supreme court. The case was finally decided on July 24, 1974, and the decision that the supreme made were 8-0 against
Historians on the opposing side believe that Nixon had a choice, but he choose the wrong one. He wanted to cover up the Watergate Scandal, and that was the turning point of his presidency. Maurice H. Stans explains, “Nixon was not a party to the Watergate break-in. That has been established, especially by the White House tapes beginning in June 1972, which showed his initial consternation at learning about it.” (Nixon 178) He could have turned the guilty party to the police, but he thought that it would end up hurting him.
Presidential power has increased all the time. Compared to the first U.S. president George Washington, the modern presidency has more power and departments (Patterson, 2014). The expansion of presidential power increases the ability of the Executive branch to regulate and protect our society. On the other hand, the president may abuse his presidential power. Like in this case, the President Nixon monitored his staff’s conversation at the Oval Office, and he let some people to set up the recording device in the Watergate complex (“teachingamericanhistory.org”, n.d.). In my opinion, the president Nixon abused his presidential power to set up these recording devices. Even though he had the excuse that the conversations he recorded may contain the national security issue, the method that he get information was not appropriate. He cannot just record everything without other people’s permission to achieve his goal. These recording conversations might have other people’s privacy. Even though the U.S. constitution does not state the word privacy, it can be derived from the Bill of Rights (Patterson, 2014). The people’s privacy is protected now, and any other person cannot invade their privacy without permission. Therefore, the president Nixon violates other people’s privacy, which was against the Constitution. Because the Constitution is the Supreme law of the U.S., the President Nixon had to follow it (Patterson, 2014). Thus, when the presidential power conflicts with the Constitution, anyone in Executive branch should obey the
The politics of the ultratight resonated deeply with Richard Nixon. Nixon had cut his political teeth as a young Red-hunting member of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. His home district in Orange Country, California, was widely known as a Birch Society stronghold. The Los Angeles-area Birch Society claimed the membership of several political and economic elites, including members of the Chandler family, which owned and published the Los Angeles Times. According to the writer David Halberstam (1979, 118) the Times, which was once described as “the most rabid Labor-bating, Red-hating paper in the United States,” virtually created Richard Nixon.
United States v. Nixon 1. On March 1, 1974 a grand jury returned an indictment charging seven of President Nixon's close aides with various offenses, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct justice having to do with the Watergate Affair. 2. After President Nixon was named an unindicted co-conspirator, he was issued a subpoena by the U.S. District Court to produce in advance of the September 9th trial date, of certain tapes, memoranda, papers, transcripts, or other writings related to certain identified meetings between him and others. 3.
Impeachment is the ultiomate punishment for a president. It is a long and complicated rout to removing a public official from office. The Constitutional process Article II, section 4 specifies the procedures to be used to remove a public official from office(CNN/All Politics). The constitution states that and president found guilty for bribery, treason, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. There has been a long debate on what should be considered a high crime. Different people in the House share different views. Ultimately it is up to the Hose to decide to drop the charges or further the investigation. If the public official is found guilty a two thirds majority vote from the Senate is necessary. The most recent president to face an impeachment hearing was Bill Clinton. A previous case involving Richard Nixon, Watergate, was held in 1974. Rather than facing an embarrassment with impeachment Nixon chose to resign in disgrace.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the United States was experiencing disorder and hysteria as domestic and foreign issues; created stress and tension within the nation. In the late 1960s, when Richard Nixon was running for president, the nation saw the death of two influential people, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, brother of John F. Kennedy. Following the death of King, race riots broke out across the country. To add to the anger and tension, many students and young Americans began to protest the war in Vietnam. Nixon promised to restore order to the country if he were to be elected. Unfortunately for Nixon, the Democrats, who had control of both sides of Congress, were prepared to block many of Nixon’s initiatives. Thus, CREEP (the committee to re-elect the president) began its corrupt path towards getting Nixon into office, even going as far as to break into the Democratic Party's National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate office in the nation’s capital ("Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon"). The Watergate scandal, which led to the first resignation of a United States President, changed the political landscape of the nation through its impact on Americans' trust in the government and its employees, its effect on government ethics, and its influence on journalism and the rise in investigative reporting.
President Richard M. Nixon and his involvement in the Watergate scandal were broadcast nightly on the 6 o’clock news in the early 1970’s. Americans were engrossed with the scandal and each person held his or her own view of situation. Each broadcast or newspaper article created a mistrust of political and governmental leaders. In response to this mistrust, the Freedom to Information Act was strengthened by the United States Congress in 1973 (Chamberlain). Although this act was first placed into law in the late 1960’s, the Watergate scandal provided the incentive make this law stronger.
Out of all of the current presidents in our time the most interesting president to explore was President Richard Nixon and out of all of them he was the only one in term to resign. That Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment to be executed to the fullest extent of their nature. His poor choices and decisions led to his resignation. Although he did have some good qualities in helping the U.S. the bad however override the good. In the CRS (Congressional Research Service) It states: “ Obstruction of justice is the impediment of governmental activities. There are a host of federal criminal laws that prohibit obstructions of justice. The six most general outlaw obstruction of judicial proceedings (18 U.S.C. 1503), witness tampering (18 U.S.C. 1512), witness retaliation (18 U.S.C. 1513), obstruction of Congressional or administrative proceedings (18 U.S.C. 1505), conspiracy to defraud The United States (18 U.S.C. 371), and contempt (a creature of statute, rule and common law). Simple perjury in a federal investigation or judicial proceedings carries an extensive fine and up to 5 years in prison.” This was the first article president Richard M. Nixon was charged with by the House of Judiciary Committee. The vote was 27 to 1 for Nixon to be charged with the first article of impeachment, which was Obstruction of Justice. In denial of his liability in part taking in the Watergate scandal by saying he wasn't involved in the scandal He pointed finger at others that were involved in the break-in. However, tapes were found of conversations that proved his involvement and he was going to be impeached. Before he was charged, he made a resignat...
Richard Nixon's first term as president will always be connected with the Watergate scandal, the biggest political scandal in United States history. Various illegal activities were conducted including burglary, wire tapping, violations of campaign financing laws, sabotage, and attempted use of government agencies to harm political opponents to help Richard Nixon win reelection in the 1972 presidential elections. There were about 40 people charged with crimes related to the scandal. Most of them were convicted by juries or pleaded guilty. Watergate involved more high-level government officials than any previous scandal. It has been etched in the minds of millions and is still being recalled today when faced with the present day scandal of President Clinton. In All The President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, former Washington Post reporters, recount, illustrate, and analyze the Watergate scandal time and their work in reporting and revealing these events for the newspaper.
What if your dreams never amounted to anything more than a dream? What would be the point of dreaming that dream? For the citizens of The United States of America, dreams were nothing but a lie, after Richard Nixon committed The Watergate Scandal. The Watergate Scandal was an authorized burglary of The Democratic National Headquarters,on June 17, 1972. A burglary that was authorized by the most powerful man in free world, Richard Nixon. The break in was an attempt to bug the Democratic Official 's offices. Undoubtedly, Richard Nixon resigned because he was facing the possibility of being impeached. Richard Nixon was facing the possibility of being impeached because of his involvement with The Watergate Scandal. Nevertheless, the question that
Despite the national attention the Watergate scandal had gained President Nixon, he won the second term presidency. The major problem for Nixon would come later. The investigations of the Watergate scandal lead to the discovery of other criminal acts by officials including Nixon. During the investigation many things begin to surface. It was discovered that documents had been destroyed that may have made a link between Nixon and the Watergate scandal. These documents may have shown that he had some acknowledgement in what had happened. There was evidence that people involved in the Nixon campaign had been wire tapping phones illegally for a long time according to “dummies.com”. The greatest issue would come to light during the 1973 Watergate hearings. During testimonies it came to light that every conversation was recorded in the Oval office according to “study.com”. It was demanded that these tapes be reviewed to learn how much involvement President Nixon had in the Watergate burglary. The President felt that he had the right to withhold these tapes through what he referred to as executive privilege. This means that if it is the best interest of the public the president has the right to keep information from the
The years leading up to the 1972 election were filled with new political tactics. Going into the election year, President Nixon seemed like he could never lose the second term election after successfully negotiating with Vietnam, Beijing, and Russia to improve international relations (Emery 4). Raising international toughness made Nixon seem like the most worthy person to stay president. Fred Emery analyses in his novel Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon, the president was also setting up the first summit meeting in history with Soviet Union Presidents (3). There seemed to be nothing capable of holding the seemingly responsible man back. However, this assurance came with massive consequences. The absolute certainty that Nixon would be reelected fueled the lies and abuse of power by the Nixon government (Emery 195). As the outlook of landslide winnings took over the White House, the moral reasoning, “the end justifies the means” became more prevalent. Nixon was obsessed with winning and being successful. Under his command his staff did whatever possible to ...
Nixon’s hamartia, a fatal flaw that leads to the character’s downfall, was his hunger for power and insecurity. Many people have reported that he would lash out at his enemies. The cause of the Watergate Scandal, the incident when burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee’s office and tried to wiretap phones and steal documents, was Nixon’s insecurity. He didn’t think he was going to be reelected and resorted to unethical actions. This event forced Nixon to resign from office, thus displaying that his insecurity led to his downfall.
Nixon’s run as an international crook finally caught up to him in 1972, when burglars were caught and arrested inside the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate hotel complex in Washington. Nixon attempted to cover it up, but eventually he was found caught in his own web of lies, and was forced to resign in 1974 (Lecture 30, December 12). Nixon’s promises of a return to normalcy were shattered with these revelations. The confidence in the Presidency that he had hoped to restore was even lower than it was when he entered office. If the 1960’s were defined by political and social instability, then Richard Nixon did nothing but further the sixties into the 1970’s.
Nixon was long associated with American politics before his fall from grace. He was along time senator before finally being elected president in 1968. During his first term, his United States went through the Vietnam War and a period of economic inflation. In 1972 he was easily re-elected over Democrat nominee George McGovern. Almost unnoticed during his campaign was the arrest of five men connected with Nixon’s re-election committee. They had broken into the Democrats national head quarters in the Watergate apartment complex, in Washington D.C. They attempted to steal documents and place wire taps on the telephones. By March of 1973, through a federal inquiry, it had been brought to light that the burglars had connections with high government officials and Nixon’s closest aids. Despite Nixon and his lawyers best efforts, it was shown that the president had participated in the Watergate cover-up. On August 8, 1974 Nixon announced, without admitting guilt, that he would resign. He left the Oval Office the next day: an obvious fall from grace.