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So I watched the Carlson segment and I don't understand what the segment has to do with what was corrupt about Watergate and what was corrupt about Nixon's actions, specifically. As best I can tell the reason people think Nixon's actions with respect to Watergate were corrupt is because he tried to obstruct a federal investigation into a break in at the DNC headquarters when it became clear that investigation was going to implicate high level members of his administration (including his Attorney General John Mitchell) in the crime. This culminated with Nixon firing his second Attorney General (Elliot Richardson) and Deputy Attorney General (William Ruckelshaus) when they refused to fire the Special Prosecutor (Archibald Cox) who was investigating the Watergate break in, in what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.
So, how is Bob Woodward's status as former Naval intelligence relevant? What does Nixon's meeting with Helms have to do with anything? Nixon's meeting with Helms happened months after the break in. Why does it matter that Woodward's source was the Deputy Director of the FBI?
Carlson's monologue is big on free association (CIA! JFK! FBI! COINTELPRO!) but pretty light on actually connecting any of these facts to any of the facts of Watergate.
The people who were working for Nixon in Watergate were freshly ex-FBI and ex-CIA. Hunt even worked for a CIA front company, apparently, which wasn't known to Nixon's chief of staff.
People at their former institutions - who were probably guilty of doing similar stuff in the past for other presidents, exposed Nixon for the kind of wrongdoing they themselves were likely guilty of.
The narrative people have of Watergate is something like 'intrepid reporter and brave FBI source' expose corrupt presidential administration, government somewhat improved and more democratic afterwards.
Meanwhile, the actual narrative is something like 'somewhat corrupt president exposed by intrigues of even more corrupt institutions', presidency afterwards even more influenced by the secret services. I mean, if you're long serving FBI, one of the old guard, and deputy director, it's not particularly brave to leak to the press. There's only like 2-3 people ranking higher than you.
I suggest that the institutional affiliation and ranks of people involved suggest the latter narrative is more closer to the truth than the former.
Ok, granting that the correct narrative of Watergate is one of relatively more corrupt executive branch employees exposing the corruption of a relatively less corrupt President it seems to me the correct conclusion is "more people should have been prosecuted for corruption" not "Nixon wasn't corrupt."
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The thrust of the current Republican revisitation of Watergate, at least as Jack Posobiec describes it, is to frame the whole thing, including the break-in itself, as an intel op to take down a President. The second topmost man at the FBI provides info to hand-picked reporters, one of whom is familiar with intel methods, and they publish everything in the most damning light possible.
What are the odds Deep Throat was working alone? One side will say “righteous whistleblower spurred by conscience” and the other is starting to say “conniving partisan engineering public opinion”.
Even granting the original conspiracy to break in was an intelligence community operation (a notion I find highly implausible compared to alternate explanations) I still don't see how that exonerates Nixon. "The intelligence community orchestrated a criminal conspiracy among high level Republicans and cabinet members therefore Nixon had to use the powers of the presidency to corruptly obstruct that investigation!" Uhh, no he didn't. Indeed, as far as I know there is very little to tie Nixon himself to the break in. Most of his involvement was in the post-break-in cover up.
Via Geoff Shepard, think of the problem from Nixon's point of view. He was in a total bind. He actually had no prior knowledge of the break-in, and he actually wanted those responsible for the break-in investigated and prosecuted. But the special prosecutor, Cox, was giving a sweetheart plea deal to the guy more responsible (Dean) who was spinning myths in order to falsely implicate Nixon. So Cox was not doing his job properly. Furthermore, Cox's team is full of partisan attack dog prosecutors champing at the bit to take down Nixon. So from Nixon's point-of-view, it is the special prosecutor who has gone rogue, and as the head of DoJ, Nixon is constitutionally responsible for removing the rogue prosecutor and putting the investigation in the hands of a more fair-minded person.
I am not sure why I should care about Nixon's state of mind. I am sure lots of people who corruptly obstructed federal investigations thought they were doing the right thing. What matters is what was actually the case. Had Cox actually gone rogue? What, specifically, were the "myths" in Dean's testimony? As far as I can tell Nixon's replacement pick for Special Prosecutor (Leon Jaworski) picked up exactly where Cox left off, subpoenaing Nixon for his taped conversations in the Oval Office.
I think that Shepard makes a pretty strong case that Cox had gone rogue, and he talks about Dean's falsehoods, you can read his book for yourself if you are interested -- http://library.lol/main/D7EDF03090D53D36483E1CC991D23836
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