How Did The Watergate Scandal

In 1974, former President Richard Nixon, was sent to court because he had been accused for the cover up the Watergate incident. By the year 1972, Richard Nixon was up for reelection as President. At the time, our country was still greatly affected by the actions and outcome of the Vietnam War. This cause our nation to be angry and deeply divided. Nixon was highly motivated to take aggressive action to ensure his success in becoming President. On June 17, 1972 a group of men from Nixon’s party were arrested because they were caught trespassing into the Democratic National headquarters in the Watergate (a hotel). The names of the men who were caught in the Watergate Scandal were James W. McCord, Virgilio R. Gonzalez, Frank A. Sturgis, and
Eugenio R. Martinez. At the hotel the men were accused of trespassing, stealing very important democratic files, and wiretapping. The charges brought upon the accused were burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications.
Once these four men were arrested and placed with these charges, the Supreme Court began to investigate more on the Watergate Scandal.
Immediately after the men were arrested, investigators went right to Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell was questioned to see if he was involved but he denied everything stating that he had no knowledge of the Watergate incident. Later on, after John Mitchell left office, was found guilty for controlling a secret fund that helped pay for spying on the Democratic Party. On January 8, 1973 a trial for the Watergate Scandal began, this is where they confirmed that the men were involved in the break-in a year prior. Upon further investigation, the Supreme Court discovers that the scandal led all the way to the White House. H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman resign from the Watergate and John Dean, the White House counsel gets fired. After discovering how serious this scandal was, Elliot Richardson appoints Archibald Cox as the prosecutor to lead an investigation towards Nixon’s campaign. Now, people are starting to get suspicious about Nixon thinking that he was involved. The investigators and Cox both advise Nixon that he should hand over the tapes but he
refused.
In the event of Nixon’s refusal, the Supreme Court constructed a case and ruled from an unanimous vote that Nixon was abusing his executive power and was required to turn in the tapes to the investigators for future evidence. If Nixon continued to refuse this request, then the Supreme Court would decide on getting him impeached. Knowing this, Nixon resigned as the President of the united States. This was a very important cause of events because this is the first time in history where a President of the United States resigned in office. Study.com has an article written by Christopher Prokes that explains the case Nixon v. United States from a judiciary point of view. From this article, Nixon’s case was brought up form his fellow party members as a violation because they said the judicial branch had no reason to be part of this case. Also, Prokes briefly describes limitation on executive privilege as it pertains to Nixon in this case. Another important factor in this article was the use of a subpoena which Prokes explains as it is being addressed upon Nixon.
The Supreme Court ruled the way they did because of the certain laws and rules for President and because Nixon abused his power as President. Prokes states that, “Executive privilege may be a basis for certain keeping things quiet, but not when it deals with criminal acts and broken laws.” This helps support the ruling of the Supreme Court because the definition of executive privilege helped everyone understand whether Nixon was allowed to keep the tapes secret or to release them to the court. According to the definition of an executive privilege, it is clearly stated that he should not have kept these recordings a secret since they involved a criminal act and dealt with broken laws. It does not state that the president has to reveal everything but when it comes to broken laws and crimes, especially when it involves going against the constitution, then the President cannot exercise executive power to keep these tapes secret from the Supreme Court. Another important factor that helps support the Supreme Court towards Nixon is the fact that the Supreme Court issued a subpoena to Nixon. According to Prokes,, “A subpoena is a legal document that orders a person to do something.” Nixon ignored the Supreme Court’s request even though there was a legal document stating that he was to hand over the recordings. If he was truly innocent and not involved in the Watergate scandal, then why is he putting so much effort into hiding these recordings? By keeping these a secret and not turning them in, Nixon is raising everyone’s suspicion with his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Aside from the two main factors which are the limits on executive privilege and the use of subpoena, the prosecutors wanted Nixon punished for his crimes. A quote Prokes states is “The prosecutors wanted him punished for lying, trying to prevent the FBI from investigating the situation, and claiming executive privilege in a situation where it didn’t apply. Prokes quotes from Archibald Cox saying that, “executive privilege issues should be resolved by the legal system and not the President.” This helps with the limitations of executive privilege by making a group of people who can come to an agreement be in charge of this instead of one person (the President) making the decisions.
By defining these common terms such as executive privilege, the use of a subpoena, and the limitations of executive privilege, Prokes has helped explain why the courts ruled the way that they did and why it became an unanimous decision in the first place. Prokes shows that not only did Nixon abuse his power with executive privilege, but he also ignored the subpoena issued upon him by the Supreme Court which should not have been done because it is a legal document. Although Nixon had some claims brought to the court, the government’s rebuttal went against his claims explaining that Nixon went above his power and that his executive privilege is limited as it should be. Landmarkcases.org has multiple facts from the actions taken upon Nixon that help support the Supreme Court in many ways. First, Nixon’s attorneys argued that the Supreme Court should not have been involved with this case in the first place because the functions of the executive branch and the judicial branch are completely different. Landmarkcases.org states, “The court rejected this argument, responding that the case raised a constitutional question, and therefore fell clearly within the functions of the judicial branch…” (Landmarkcases.org, 2018). When this case was first introduced, charges were brought upon these men and nixon because they committed crimes and broke the law which involves the constitution because the Supreme Court needs to rule if this is constitutional or not which is one of the main functions of the judicial branch. Nixon’s attorneys were just trying to rid of the Supreme Court so Nixon wouldn't be charged but they failed because their statement saying that the Supreme Court should have not been involved was incorrect due to the fact that the case has to be deemed constitutional or not. Once again, this was just another attempt to make Nixon look innocent but it did not work.
Following the fact that the judicial branch should have been involved, the court stated that even though there was a subpoena, the tapes would be investigated over private investigators first sand not revealed to the public. This shows that they are not blaming Nixon yet, but using the tapes to pursue the investigation further to get to the bottom of this scandal. Since Nixon keeps refusing to hand over the evidence, he is raising suspicions of the investigators and the court. Nixon abused his power to get into office and now he is trying to abuse his power yet again to ensure that he keeps his dirty work a secret. Landmarkcases.org states, “..the President’s interest in keeping its communications secret was outweighed by the interests of the judiciary in providing a fair trial with full factual disclosure.” (Landmarkcases.org).
President Nixon was not fully wrong about the executive privilege, but he went above it and abused his power. As shown on landmarkcases.org, they state “The court acknowledged the validity of these interests and that the President was entitled to a degree of executive privilege.” (Landmarkcases.org). This means that Nixon did have executive privilege, but he was limited on it and did not have absolute executive privilege because then he would be too powerful. In my opinion, President Nixon was wrong to keep these tapes confidential.
Not only did he refuse to and them over, but he continued to deny anything involving the Watergate scandal even after the court had witnessed confess that they have interacted with Nixon on matters involving the Watergate incident. Also, the Supreme Court had power over the President because although the President can exercise executive power, he could not issue executive power in this case because it involved criminal acts on a much higher level. Since this crime involved the President, it went straight ti the Supreme Court which immediately takes away his executive privilege n this case because they judicial branch had the power in order to determine if the actions were constitutional or not. The court is doing the right thing by working towards impeaching Nixon at the time because what he did was wrong. Sneaking into a facility, taking secret files, and wiretapping is a big crime and what makes it worse is that Nixon’s party snuck into the opposing party’s facility. If it were up to me, I would have had Nixon removed from office sooner than the courts did, even though he resigned. Which brings me to another reason on why the courts did the right thing. If he is the first to resign as President, the he clearly was involved and was hiding useful evidence for the investigators. If Nixon was the innocent man he pleaded to be, then he would have had no problem handing over the recordings and then
wouldn’t have resigned as the President.