45th anniversary of the 19 to bring in the watergate hotel which led to seven investigation and eventually to president nixon's resignation. next, former senator lowell weicker and former staff discuss their work in the watergate investigation. moderated by leslie from cbs news, panelists also answer questions on parallel about president nixon and president trump. this was recorded at the watergate hotel in washington dc. it's just under an hour and a half. mr. freedman: hello, everybody. i'm gordon freedman. [applause] mr. freedman: thank you. three or four months ago, we said maybe we should get some people together, and i thought that was a good idea. then i started trying to find people. it was a little difficult, and then some stuff started happening in d.c. that was vaguely reminiscent to some of

the stuff we worked on, and all of a sudden, everybody seemed to want to show up. this is just fantastic. on a personal level, raise your hands if you were on the committee staff. this is pretty amazing. we said goodbye to each other 43, 44 years ago, and when i got ready to do this, i called jim hamilton, who was my boss back then. i said, i mean it, i'll have it in tomorrow. he said, gordon, you better have it in tomorrow. it's like no time has passed. when we broke up -- i don't know how many of you remember this -- sam dash had a final meeting. he said this has been the most important thing that has happened in my life and i'm sure will ever happen in my life and will ever happen in yours. i'm thinking of 21, 22 years old. i hope something happens.

looking back, it becomes very real. then, the truth was solid. something you worked on. you found it. in the intervening years, it became more and more relative, and now, it is like water or air. i think it's important to come back in this room together to think about what happened during that period of time. [applause] i don't know how many of you remember that i took pictures and had a camera around a lot. this was one you just will not see when a news photographer shows up, senator ervin and honor of our friends, i saw that picture these republicans, they , pose better than the democrats. well, i have to tell you, i've been through all the pictures.

i realized this 43 years ago. i put away 600 negatives in sleeves, and i started desperately looking for that box. i've now done it, and we have a nice reservoir of photographs going up. the clyde group, the pr agency which has given us just wonderful pro bono help, we have a wonderful website coming together called watergatecommittee.com because there is not a good historical reference. we expect after today, we will continue to be a voice, and i'm just happy everybody could be here, and, leslie, i'm thrilled you could do this. these people probably do not need a lot of introduction. start with governor weicker. those of us on the committee remember that he was very demure, did not have a lot to say. [laughter]

mr. freedman: he went on to hold many offices, and we are really, really happy you could be here today. [applause] mr. freedman: rufus, in many ways, is the unsung hero of the watergate committee. it is great to put a bunch of people on a diet and have television cameras show up, but you cannot imagine what someone would have to do to make all that happened inside the senate and be able to negotiate to put all of us in an auditorium. i don't know how you did that, but in addition to being deputy chief counsel, he had to clear all these obstacles, and i'm assuming you made several trips between different senators' offices. rufus went on and has been just instrumental in politics in north carolina.

secretary of state, attorney general a couple runs? , governorship? mr. edmisten: one was enough. mr. freedman: dave dorsen was a prosecutor in new york and found himself on the watergate committee. he was one of the three people that ran the three investigative groups on the watergate committee. he dealt with campaign finance and issues around that, and jim with the watergate break-in and terry with other things that reached into the investigative results which would probably still do not know about. david, each person here has had some experience going forward. david actually worked on a lawsuit against gordon liddy and his author, libelous sort of thing.

he has written a number of books, just finished one on anthony scalia. jim hamilton has had an active law practice. he has gone on and in addition to his legal work vetted almost every vice presidential candidate going back a number of years and other folks, some people who were very active on watergate, and with that, leslie stahl, i think you have a pretty good idea about obviously "60 minutes." i'm going to let her start off and we will go from there. thank you, everybody. [applause]

ms. stahl: when we're all done, we will give gordon a special thanks for pulling this together. before we do reminiscences, can we do a round with each of you describing watergate and its significance? how would you explain it? >> i think it is the first time in anybody's memory that somebody challenged the president of the united states. up until richard nixon, the decision -- the position was but after watergate everybody felt they could go , ahead and question the president of the united states. in other words, we established the fact that a president is not above the law. until that point, does not the case. mr. weicker: [inaudible]

mr. edmisten: i think the significance of watergate was that you proved that people can get together and make something happen. it has not happened since that time. every single scandal, not a one has done what watergate did. i think it shows that we do not have to have rancor in political discourse, and that's the thing i take home every night. mr. dorsen: i'm going to take off where they left off and say this is an opportunity for the american people to sue the -- to see the government in action at its best. i think they put together a vivid demonstration, a story

taughtlled -- that the american people what was going on in a way that everyone could understand and evaluate to himself or herself what was wrong with the nixon administration and how the government could go about correcting it. mr. hamilton: i think watergate was significant for a number of reasons. first of all, it dealt with the very fabric of who we are as a nation -- our values and distaste for corruption. certainly, i think it was sh knew howbecause da to tell a story. of 1973,e summer

watergate was the best soap tv.a on and of course, the other reason watergate was successful is they found the white house tapes. ms. stahl: well, we are going to get around to the tapes because that is huge, we all know that. the magnitude of the wrongdoing was impressive. there were brigands. the white house tried to do for the criminal justice system -- tried to divert the criminal justice system. he said the nixon white house was corrupt through and through. mr. hamilton: it was corrupt, and remember that lodged in the thesewhitehouse were that all caps on -- ll

of misdeeds, but there were other plans for the brookings institute and things like that. of course, they tried unsuccessfully to break into watergate. that was the break-in that actually got them caught, but i think it revealed that many people in the white house -- they were all in on the cover-up, and that is quite amazing as we look back. ms. stahl: you were telling me about patrick gray at the fbi because the white house tried to get the fbi to come into the cover-up. mr. weicker: the nixon people tried to take him over to do their dirty work, and this was an especially poignant scenario. he was a man who was a submarine commander in the u.s. navy, and he had gone on one dangerous mission after another and excelled as a hero.

he comes back to his country, serves in a political position, and he is used. i managed to half past -- to have pat tell his story to the press because i wanted to get out front of the news. fortunately, number one, he did that, and fortunately, number two, he did not go ahead and suffer a prison sentence. ms. stahl: you told me senator ervin was the absolute perfect person to run this committee because of his mind, because of his character, and because -- you did not say this -- but because of his eyebrows. why do you say he was the perfect person?

mr. dorsen: senator baker said that no one knows that senator ervin was a graduate of harvard law school, and he'd say yes, nobody knows that. he came across as very folksy but with a razor-sharp mind. he was conservative. he was for states rights in the 60's and early 70's. while it disadvantaged many people, it exhibited him as a middle-of-the-road democrat or american who would be acceptable -- whose account would be acceptable and accepted by people of the united states, unlike somebody who would have come across as a partisan, liberal, anti-nixon person. senator ervin embodied the ecumenical tradition of the united states.

ms. stahl: you were his right-hand man, senator ervin, and i know he let his guard down with you. tell us what kind of a man you found because you knew him so deeply. mr. edmisten: when you travel with a man for virtually 10 years -- i remember one time i traveled with him and said i'm having to sleep in the bed with him but i said i'm not going to sleep with god. i finally had to get up and go to this little bathroom to get my sleep, but the man was chosen because people believed his word. i never saw him go back on his word. i want to make something very plain -- there's a good book by carl -- let's see, he's a professor at appalachian.

against this a dichotomy of ervin being very anti-civil rights, very pro-personal rights. it was all part of the man. there was no pretense. he did say to me one time a little bit about nixon. nixon supported him. nixon swore him in. i told the senator about having been at the white house on the separation of power subcommittee. nixon invited us down there. then he suddenly went over and got in the car and started talking to himself. i mentioned this to someone, i said, senator, he got into the car and talk to himself.

ervin has had a battle with richard nixon for almost five years. was an imperial presidency. personal, he did not trust the man. ms. stahl: right from the beginning. in those days, we had a middle. we had conservative democrats and liberal republicans, and the country had a middle. we have lost that. i don't know that you can really do what you all did if there is not a middle. does anybody want to comment on that? mr. weicker: well, you've got to talk to each other in the first place. i don't think the rivalry or the partisanship was any less when i was in the united states senate, but -- and this is a big but -- when the bell rang and it was the end of the day, you used to

go off together, republican and democrat, and that's where the business was done. you talked, in other words, and did the dealing so by the time you came back on the floor, you had a solution. now, if you don't talk to each other during the session, after the session, at no time, how can you get anything done? you cannot. >> we had parties back then, leslie. we stayed in washington. now, you stay in washington for two days at a time, and you become a washington creature. i wonder how important you think

ms. stahl: i wonder how important you think judge sirica was in up or allowing the committee to go forward. he took over the questioning of the burglars and was stunning. i cut saying that judges can't do that. how important do you think sirica was in watergate? mr. dorsen: i think he was very, very important, but i'm not sure that we would have been as happy applauding sirica if the shoe was on the other foot -- as -- he abuses his power plain and simply. he appointed astronomical in punitive sentences. when leaders of the nixon white house were on trial, he assigned the case to himself. he was known as maximum john. he was not a good judge.

i still don't think he was a good judge. i think what he accomplished was admirable, but i spent many hours thinking that we paid a price for that and we have to be careful not to let the end justify the means. without judge sirica, it is questionable if we would have had watergate work out the way it did, but i do not think his legacy should be carved in bronze. mr. edmisten: i do think that he did set in motion the accord. i wondered how a man like this could do that, and i think it was blind hero worship or stockholm syndrome about richard nixon. mr. hamilton: one thing that really got the ball rolling in watergate was mccord. there was a record that said there had been perjury in the trial and the trees in the

forest are going to fall. that got everybody. ms. stahl: that's because the judge squeezed him. up until this panel, i was shocked by it, but i thought he was a hero. his reputation is not what you are saying? mr. dorsen: no, he accomplished something, and another person who deserves some minimal credit for this is g gordon liddy. if he had pled guilty, we would not have had watergate. he made blunder after blunder, which allowed all this to come out once sirica pushed everybody.

there were extraordinary twists and turns that have not been explored. mr. hamilton: i think it is important to remember that the only people involved were the seven defendants, and the senate did not believe it. that's why the watergate committee was established. ms. stahl: sirica was squeezing the burglars and then the next layer and the next layer, and he kept saying, you have to tell me about the higher-ups. you keep talking about sam dash organizing hearings in a way that told a story, but was the purpose the same as the purpose to squeeze your witnesses?

in other words, did you always have the president in mind and were you always pointing in that direction? mr. hamilton: no, when we started, we did not think this thing was going to go very high. i think quite frankly, we were all astounded as the evidence started coming in, particularly as we started talking to john. it snowballed quickly and at least in my mind got to be a much bigger thing than we anticipated. ms. stahl: from john dean on, everything pointed -- this was little known. in fact, i did not know about it until three days ago. senator weicker lived directly across the street from john dean. did any of you know that?

he kept this a secret. tell us about that. i think you told me that he approached you and this was how this testimony, the whole thing came about. mr. weicker: actually, i put the word out that i wanted to talk to john. he was represented by stafford of maryland. dean wasn't talking to anybody, and all of a sudden, one evening, when i was at the theater here in washington, somebody came to me and said that he wanted to talk. so i was taken to charlie shaffer's home, and there was john dean. i did not meet him across the street, even though he lived there. i did not know in.

at that moment, he told me the full story. before he told that to me, he asked me if i was sure i was not in trouble. i asked what he meant. he said that the nixon committee gave x number of dollars to serious senators who were running for public office, and they gave them to each senator personally, and that violated the law, and they are going to go ahead and dump this on your head and other senators also. fortunately for me, i had been campaigning in upstate connecticut, and when they made the offer of the money from the white house, i could not he my campaignso manager accepted the donation, which absolved me of any wrongdoing in the matter, so i turned to john and said that i had no reason to believe that they have anything that is going to harm me.

he said ok and then sat down and told me the entire scenario. at that moment, we became good friends and from time to time would talk to each other on the street that we lived. ms. stahl: did you make the connection with sam dash? mr. weicker: that they will have to talk to. i know sam was talking to them before i approached them. mr. hamilton: sam writes about it in his book. i think sam was approached by >> i think sam was approached by charlie shaffer who icate dean wanted to talk. i had a series of meetings. initially between sam and john. ms. stahl: before we go into what he told you and how that all came about, i would like to ask a similar question that i did about sirica. how did you all see john dean? is he a hero? did he crossed lines?

mr. dorsen: first of all, john mr. dorsen: first of all, john dean is the biggest hero of watergate. he's the only person whose actions were not just for himself. i was an investigator. i wanted to make watergate look big. the prosecutors, their job was to prosecute. the only person who attempted political suicide and acted against his own self interest because he would not have been caught if he did not come forward was john dean. it's great to be up there on television asking questions, but that doesn't take any heroism, that is just seeing her. john dean -- i want to repeat and jim probably knows this better than i do -- i don't think they would have ever made a case against john dean if john

dean had not come forward, and if john dean had not come forward, they would have not gotten the higher-ups. mr. hamilton: i may have a slightly different view. i don't think john was a choir boy. john was in a messy situation. he was told he would be made the scapegoat, so he did have an interest to protect. he did not want to be the one who was responsible for the cover-up, so he came and talked to us. it did the nation a great service, but it also did john a great service because i think it did lessen his prison time and all of that. i have mixed feelings about john. ms. stahl: well, i think he is a great guy. and he sent some questions into the panel. mr. weicker: before you ask the questions, i got to know john

pretty well. i think he was the hero of watergate as much could be. he was a good man who did the right thing at the right time, and i think you ought to give him credit. ms. stahl: john offered to float the name of one of the staff attorneys as a supreme court nominee under bush two. the fellow declined the offer. was it rufus, fred thompson, david dorsen, or sam dash? yes? >> i'm going to say it was dash. ms. stahl: not rufus. not david. you want the answer? the answer is fred thompson. he declined the offer, telling

john that he never liked practicing law. [laughter] ms. stahl: another question. why did sam dash insist on a private meeting with john dean on the eve of alexander butterfield's appearance before the committee? john was out of town and sand made him fly back so they could meet before the testimony. sam did this because he thought that butterfield's testimony was a setup by the white house to undercut john dean's testimony, or he wanted to know who they could subpoena in order to protect the tapes and keep them from being destroyed, or he wanted to know if john thought butterfield was a reliable witness.

mr. edmisten: i think the answer to that is dean's voice. i have no earthly idea. i did not know sam met with him before. mr. hamilton: i did not know that either. i'm a little surprised. sam and i had met with john the day after the tapes were discovered which was two days before butterfield testified. ms. stahl: that's the meeting he is talking about. i know you were there. mr. hamilton: i will tell you what that meeting is about because sam called me that saturday morning.

sam picked me up, and we went over to john's house in alexandria. he had a townhouse, and john had no reason to know why we were coming, and john, who was always very well put together even on a saturday morning, met us at the door. we went upstairs to their living room, and they sat down on the couch. sam was sitting to the left, and i was standing at a mantelpiece because i wanted to see what john's reaction was when sam told him we had the tape, and his reaction was to break into this wide smile because he knew those tapes were going to support what he had to say. ms. stahl: i'm going to read your where he sent me.

sam made him fly in or this meeting. he said sam dash was deeply worried that all the committee was being set up by the white house and that the white house knew that the tapes were going to undercut john dean. he says in his answer that sam dash brought you a long and positioned you in a place to watch his face specifically when he found out the tapes were there. we have a couple of others, but they are too long, so we will move in. when john dean testified, 60 million tuned in. when james comey testified, 19 million tuned in. john dean was a big deal. 19 -- one-nine -- for comey.

six-oh for dean. did i misspeak? i want to talk about how everybody including -- i think some of you have talked about it today. today, everybody talks about the great bipartisanship back then, but as a reporter sitting then, my impression was that republicans, for the most part -- not all of them, but republicans for the most hard did everything they could to insulate the president. they were like drone bees in the hive protecting their queen. they tried to discredit witnesses who testified and tried at one point to blame everything on john dean. i would like you to comment on what was going on behind the scenes.

mr. weicker: i can speak for the republican side because it was clearly differentiated. ed gurney was 100% behind the president from beginning to end. howard baker started off being with the president and made regular visits. however, baker started to see that there were problems. he withdrew from that position and became one of the heroes on the committee, so he did it. i started off being for nixon. i did not believe he could do anything like he was being accused of, but after giving

myself a thorough history lesson on his politics with california, i understood nixon could do some very bad things. the evidence was overwhelming as to what a bad man he was. [applause] -- >> you're a hero, lowell. mr. weicker: thank you. [applause] ms. stahl: did you all know that fred thompson was going to the white house and getting questions and bringing them back? >> yeah. ms. stahl: you all knew that? >> no, i did not. i'm sorry, i did know. as i said, there was regular communication. >> i did not. everything was on tv, and he did not have any secrets to be telling anybody, and i found it sort of normal that he would be talking to the press.

by the time you got to the end, every question in the world had been asked. ervin didn't worry about that because he thought we had nailed enough by the time we got to him. i knew about fred. i miss fred. i think he was a decent, honorable human being. ms. stahl: i'm going to jump ahead because we have a second half. how many of you think that if there had been no tape, that nixon would have served out his term? all of you? if there were not tapes, nixon would have been president until he end of his term?

>> i agree with that. ms. stahl: why do you think he did not destroy the tape? anybody have a theory? mr. hamilton: vanity. the man couldn't stand to think i'm going to destroy my beautiful imperialistic words. that is the greek word the hubris. mr. dorsen: i think in large part, he thought the tapes were not going to harm him. that is what i understand. i cannot remember where i got that idea from. it's just like clinton inviting an investigation of whitewater. 99% or 97% is innocuous, but nobody cares about that. when you invite someone to do that, you are inviting them to concentrating on the 3% that is going to be bad. it is quite possible, because i

don't think -- as john dean says, expert and obstruction of justice is not a qualification for becoming counsel to the president. i think they were somewhat lined -- blinded by the whole thing and did not appreciate the seriousness of what they were doing. mr. hamilton: nixon had some good lawyers, and i'm sure they mentioned the words obstruction of justice, so i'm sure there were legal reasons he didn't. mr. weicker: i take a little bit different view. we had already written the report. at least i had. i think many of the other members had before the release of the tapes. about 90% of what i wrote and what the committee wrote was fact.

in other words, the state did not really add that much. the tapes would disclose in the middle of the senate watergate hearings in 1973. we didn't get it, but we discovered them. we never got them. what did happen before we wrote the reports -- >> we did have a transcript prepared by somebody in the white house. >> they did release some of the tapes. we went about the tapes in june of 1973, with butterfield. ms. stahl: talking about how watergate relates to today. one minute. last question before we make a switch. i want to know if each of you while the hearings were going on actually felt the enormity of

what you were doing, the historical significance of it. were you thinking that you were going to bring down a president? were you kind of consumed with the bigness of it? mr. edmisten: i certainly was. 31-year-old farm boy being hauled down the street in the back of a police car. after the tapes came out, after nixon, i said it was pretty enormous. it dawned on all of us, we were in sort of hushed tones, as i recall. is this going up to the president? i remember ervin said he just did not believe the president of the united states could do all the things that john dean said he did. well, he did and more.

mr. hamilton: after dean testified, we became aware where this might go. that it was in the norman's matter in the history of the nation. probably not before dean testified. there was a lot of speculation, but after dean testified, yes. sam had met with dean privately, but i got involved a little bit before he testified, and we spent hours and hours going over every line of that testimony. i was with him one night until 4:00 a.m. he got pushed on it, and when that process was over, i believe him and sam dash believed him, and it turned out we should have believed him because he was

right. ms. stahl: the whole country believed him. mr. dorsen: i thought john dean was an amazing witness. he had a photographic memory. he was able to sit down and work things out at the end of that. he had a photographic impression of what was going on, but it was not a simple matter of just remembering. i could not see until the tapes came out and we were worried about the tapes being a red herring, how we were going to get any further because i think all of us assumed that everyone would dispute these. yes, it was terribly weighty, but it was a long time before i thought there might be serious consequence. maybe not until the saturday night massacre. >> dean did not convince everybody. he called him a bottom dwellings

what -- slug. ms. stahl: as i said, we are going to turn to the question of how all of this relates to today. jim is going to recuse himself because of a representation that his firm is engaged in. we are going to have a substitute come up. this is ron rotunda, everybody, who was on the committee. [applause] ms. stahl: he was sam dash's legal scholar, and today, he is a law professor. i'm going to start with you, ron. hear?ou he the question is the deja vu of piling up obstruction of justice, executive privilege, firing people who are engaging the investigation. former director of national intelligence james clapper says

watergate pales in comparison to the trump-russia scandal. in legal terms from what we have seen so far, do you agree with that? mr. rotunda: people forget we talked about impeachment for george w. bush's testimony. for bill clinton. it's like there always is an impeachment. we have a lot of innuendo. the president actually gets on the phone with putin and says what can we do to manipulate election results, that is really bad, but firing the fbi director -- think about this. john kennedy tells j edgar hoover he wants an investigation of martin luther king. he was investigated for years. so you are fired. would we say he is obstructing that investigation?

the guy is fired but the investigation still goes on, but with somebody else. or if obama tells the fbi director he doesn't want him to spend time on arresting illegal immigrants but spend more time on investigating crack cocaine. if comey does not do that, you fire him. we talk about obstruction, and the obstruction involving richard nixon -- it was not getting rid of patrick gay or archibald cox. it was the allegations he paid hush money. his aides were saying apparently on his behalf to keep quiet and the president would issue an executive pardon afterward. that's obstruction, changing testimony. paying somebody to change testimony. firing somebody you have a right to fire, whether he does it because comey is a showboat, it does not change the

investigation at all if you think about it. comey never figured this out, but rod rosenstein was in charge of the investigation, and the fbi are still out there questioning people and they still are. comey is not doing any other work here. rosenstein appoints a special prosecutor, but that prosecutor actually reports to rod rosenstein. this isn't -- one thing that practically made my jaw drop is when comey, asked about a new york times article that was very important, says everything in the article is false, and that floored me because it's the new york times. you know, it is a paper of record. they were sloppy. somebody lied to them, and they did not catch it. i don't see it at all. all you've got is innuendo. ms. stahl: david? mr. dorsen: keep in mind that

the committees of congress are just getting started. i'm trying to think of where we are today in terms of watergate, but it's very early, and i think there's a lot that we don't know and i hope we will find out, but it is potentially serious, and there's another dimension, and that is that watergate potentially was a domestic political power play. we do not know what the trump thing is about. is it foreign policy? is it money? is it money? is it money? [laughter] mr. dorsen: i don't know, but i think we will find out eventually. it is just too early to tell. another thing -- i believe that when archibald cox was fired, they abolished the special

prosecutorial office. this is what ron was saying. when you fire the fbi director, you do not dissolve the fbi. i think firing or abolishing mueller's position and force would be serious business. there is a serious difference between firing a director and a abolishing a position. mr. rotunda: fbi agents i think surrounded the special prosecutor's office and nobody could go in. that is, like, a lot different. we had not seen that. ms. stahl: the watergate committee -- tell me if i'm wrong -- did issue a subpoena for the tapes. is that the one you delivered? >> that is correct. court, said no,

you could not do it, but when the special prosecutor issued a subpoena, the court said ok. mr. edmisten: it was not cooked enough yet and when the supreme court ruled unanimously the tapes had to be turned over, we were almost out of business. we didn't need them, there was a special prosecutor. ms. stahl: what about making a legal case? is now the law that a congressional committee cannot force a president to turn over evidence, but a court can? is that settled? mr. edmisten: it is settled law. mr. dorsen: the watergate committee subpoenaed the tapes. we did not get them. special prosecutor subpoenaed the tapes.

they did get them. that created a rule that strongly favors turning over presidential material to the special counsel or special prosecutor rather than to the congressional committee. mr. rotunda: we have never had a case where a court has ordered a president to turn over material to a congressional committee. mr. rotunda: the impeachment committee subpoenaed tapes from the president but announced they were not going to court. we have the sole power, and the president turned them over, but i think that is because of the public. the real heroes of watergate are the public. they watched the hearings and were impressed and made their voices heard. ms. stahl: is it settled that a congressional committee cannot subpoena a president and a court can? mr. rotunda: not settled, but it

will be hard for committee to get this evidence. mr. dorsen: i think jim hamilton wrote a book. i think it is not settled, and i think it is still up in the air. ms. stahl: do any of you think that mueller, if he still has a job, will subpoena the president tax returns? money, money, money is the issue. mr. dorsen: they show the president made profit during the congressional negotiations. if you let me build the hotel i will let you print a listening device in the oval office. mr. rotunda: i guess everybody would like to see his returns, me included, but you have to have more than -- a little bit more in the case of income tax returns.

the courts have been careful in trying to protect those. he might be able to get them. it might be that he sent in audit over there to look at them, but i do not know now if that would be relevant. we have to see what happens. ms. stahl: do any of you foresee that we are heading in any way to a constitutional crisis? and was watergate a constitutional crisis? mr. edmisten: it has all the makings, but as my wife likes to say, it is not cooked enough yet. i think she picked that up for my mother. we have to keep remembering that watergate and today's happenings are occurring because of an imperial presidency.

i'm not judging anybody, but there seem to be a lot of parallels of misuse of all the things -- it seems to me like the folks in the white house go and read all the sins of watergate and replicate them. they check them twice. i've never seen anything like it in my life. ms. stahl: it's a cover-up. mr. edmisten: right. you know something happened and rush out to repeat it. ms. stahl: it is funny. edmisten: mi wrong, senator? mr. weicker: well, i would not draw a parallel. we have yet to have all the fact on what is going on. i think to try to equate the two is wrong. i think that watergate was what it was. constitutional crisis? the answer is yes. and you have all the answers that everybody is looking for.

again, what was established with watergate is what is important even now, which is you could question a president of the united states. that had never happened before, and god knows if you went to the histories of previous presidents what you would find, but there were never queries. for the first time, the american public knew they could have at a president. that is the precedent that is important. as far as today's events, far too early to tell, but to clear one thing -- you are questioning a president of the united states, and that is the legacy. mr. rotunda: if i could add one thing -- the election of 1800 -- you are too young to remember it. [laughter] rotunda: it took months to

elect them. mr. rotunda: the election of 2000, it took weeks. they thought that was a constitutional crisis. there will not be a constitutional crisis no matter what happens because we will be protected. ms. stahl: we now know who the optimist is on this panel. mr. rotunda: there actually is a list of about maybe 10 or so presidents who have given testimony, often not in person, but that was painstakingly collected from otherwise unpublished sources by me, and it's in volume two of my six-volume treatise at better bookstores anywhere -- no, it will be in a law library. but there are actually collections. but senator weicker is also correct that it was not big news

when ronald reagan testified under oath because watergate settled that issue. there is not any notion that the president cannot be treated like ordinary -- or when bill clinton testified before the grand jury. as a courtesy, they did it in the white house instead of in front of the grand jury. ms. stahl: that is what the senator says. david, were you trying to say something? >> no. ms. stahl: we will move on. i want to ask you about that fawning cabinet meeting the other day. [laughter] ms. stahl: because when i saw that -- over and over -- we all saw it, right? the cabinet meeting? rotunda: i didn't, i was traveling. ms. stahl: well, the cabinet met and every single person except general mattis kind of said that they love the president and he has been wonderful and he's a genius. when i saw that, i got to wonder about the 25th amendment.

i began to think if you have a bunch of high-powered billionaires who succeeded and have incredible resumes and they are humiliated and shamed and embarrassed, is it possible they would vote for the 25th amendment? and then what happens? first of all, is it possible? the majority of the cabinet would have to vote for it. then, what would happen? who knows in legal terms? you are shaking your head like it is never going to happen. mr. dorsen: well, it is never going to happen. [laughter] mr. doresen: these people, that is their worst nightmare, someone asking if they want to vote the president out of office. does pence want to be vice president? i think they just want to hide. ms. stahl: [inaudible] mr. dorsen: i don't think it matters, really.

the comparison with watergate, they found a maniac and put him in charge of running the democratic campaign. here they found a maniac and put him in the white house. [laughter] >> i thought it was a skit. [laughter] ms. stahl: well, it was funny. i did some research on the 25th amendment. the cabinet majority can vote, but the president has to agree. if the president does not agree, then -- and the cabinet comes back and votes for it again, then 2/3 of both chambers of commerce have to endorse it, so it ain't gonna happen. ok. here first. it [laughter] anybody here want to

talk about -- a lot of laws came out of watergate. campaign finance and the prosecutor's law, and there were others. they have all been diluted since then. >> they have all been what? diluted.: either they are not there anymore or they are diluted. i wonder -- what's the legacy? i know you said that we can now question presidents. is there any other lasting legacy, positive or negative? certainly, it changed the press. mr. dorsen: i think the campaign finance laws would have been -- that is the supreme court's doing. if hillary clinton had won, campaign-finance laws would have been revived. a lot of these are just a product of our complex system of government. the supreme court said 5-4, that

is free speech of trumps finance. actually, i have written a book, too, which says that is unclear, just like ron's book, it's called the unexpected dilemma and you have to go to law libraries to find it. pitched mywhen i book i told a joke. [laughter] leslieeslie -- you are stahl. i am going to ask one last question and turn it over to the audience. your view of the investigation, what happens, the outcome, any part of that changed from the >> if i may say so, looking out on this room here filled with

young people who have done some very big things and conducted .hemselves with great power changed, that it was the only time in history where a committee -- we all got along. it's overblown about people running to the white house and snitching. there wasn't anything to snitch. the hearings were so open. we were getting sometimes 40,000 pieces of mail a week. ms. stahl: can you imagine if there had been email? mr. edmisten: i still think it has relevance. why do we have 30 days -- 30 things with a date attached to the end of it?

mr. rotunda: in the old days, there would be some big news. the three networks and pbs would show the u.n. general assembly whatever. their ratings dropped. they did not have commercials, so on. for us, the ratings increased. the networks started to advertise us more. the reason i think that was important was -- one big lesson of watergate is we do what the people say. they were upset with this, and everything else followed. the other lesson -- ms. stahl: that's a great point. mr. rotunda: what? ms. stahl: that's a great point. mr. rotunda: there is a real hero. we didn't invite them all here, the american people, because it costs bank -- it cost too much. the other thing, the people who had done wrong -- john dean was just a few years older than i was. [laughter]

and i thought, you know -- i remember all these meetings with the president. that's kind of awe-inspiring. i get to see the president of the united states, and he remembers him. and nobody decided to just let's be evil. they took little baby steps, and they took more baby steps, and at one point they crossed a line. oh, we will just cover it up a little bit. it doesn't matter. that's something, there but for the grace of god goes i. we have to get our bearings when we start taking these little baby steps. the basic -- the basic rule goes back to kindergarten. what if my mother knew? if she did and you wouldn't want to do it, then you really shouldn't do it. and these people -- there was a rationalization. they justified. we want to get the president's program through. they did really little steps. at some point, it was really big steps.

>> one thing i think i have to say, the watergate committee is responsible for one of the great misconceptions of the last 45 years. real reasons for the cover-up were not the burglary. it was the break-in in dr. fielding's office. the reason john dean told me was that no one in the white house could have tied to the break-in. however, the white house name, including the signature, were all over the break-in of dr. fielding's office, who was a psychiatrist. one thing he will -- he told me is that history is long. we perpetuated it. we didn't know about the ellsbury break-in.

the question was, the burglary,, the cover-up. that's not what happened. the real problem was that the pentagon papers were out. that was big news. it was an enormous problem. the white house signed off on it. people in the white house signed off. i think that history from now on should moderate what we said when we didn't have all the facts, and recognize that the reason for the cover-up -- the break-in of dr. ellsbury's office and not the burglary. ms. stahl: from today on, no longer watergate, it is fieldergate. is mike here? a member of the minority staff. do you want to ask a question, mike? mike: i don't think i have any questions.

i do want to add something for fred, who is not here to defend himself. i know he and the sender had their differences here and there, but he was a great -- the senator had their differences here and there, but he was a great respecter of you, senator. this idea that somehow he was given documents and questions to be asked as some sort of puppet is nonsensical. he was an accomplished trial lawyer. i had been a trial lawyer, a federal prosecutor for five years. so had howard. and it is correct that the white house did give and tried to give -- and fred would throw them in the trash or look at them and see if they had some value and he would proceed as the great lawyer and individual that he is. i wanted the record clear with regard to that.

ms. stahl: excellent. is scott here? >> it's a response to some other things. people have forgotten a couple of things that are contextually important. after dean had testified and we heard from the attorney general and still there was no corporation -- corroboration, we started doing satellite witnesses, people who were not principles, but one or two removed. in the course of doing that, in early july, one of the stenographers --if you remember, we were segregated in many ways in washington. all the women on the staff basically would have been lawyers 10 years later, but they were stenographers. one of them came to me late one night. they were delivering something.

i think you should look at this. you should see this document. it was a typed account. fred's account of his interactions with the man who replaced john dean, who was running the cover-up out of the white house. she said, i won't give it to you, but i will lay it out. and laid it out on howard's desk. it was a remarkably detailed document of what questions should be asked of dean and what should be pursued, basically trying to hang him up on some henry peterson things. the most for marco thing was it had quotes of what nixon said -- the most remarkable thing was it had quotes of what nixon said to dean.

i got a copy of it through other channels, not that copy that night. we started asking people about it. one of the next people we interviewed was alexander butterfield. we went through all the systems that -- he controlled the president's dusk, effectively -- president's desk, effectively. he looked at the memo. wow, there are quotes in it. this is very interesting. where did this come from? of all the things you describe? well, it didn't come from any of those. he kept hedging and set it down. sanders was questioning. doing his round. don appropriately asked him -- suggested that enid, talking with nixon, had lowered his voice and got over it now: -- over in the alcove. he had the impression that the conversation could be recorded. to which butterfield responded, no. dean would not have known. he picked up the document. he said, that's where this came from. i think he thought we were bipartisan more than we were, trying to trap him in some sense. he said, i guess you guys know all the president's offices are bugged with taping devices.

ms. stahl: he said "i guess you know." >> he thought we knew. i said, yes, of course, but tell us your account. there was some other context, too. early -- there was a lot of friction, a lot of non-bipartisan activity. i was asked by sam dash to follow a member of the republican staff to the eob. i was following him. we got there. of course, i could not get in. i got back to dash. he said, well, i guess we can't prove they are still communicating. we talked about subpoenas that were going out. i said, well, let me borrow up your phone. i called up the office. i think it was jim jordan who was there. he came to the phone. he said, why are you calling me here? just to prove you are here. he resigned the next day.

so, that's just contextual. the other thing, which i think we've forgotten, and i would love it if some but he wants to talk about it, but we did solve watergate. we figured out that it was a huge thing about money. we figured out howard hughes had paid off raposo. raposo had gone back to the committee and asked him to come up with some money so he could return it to the hughes' people. he did,, in fact return it, through the watergate committee. it wasn't the same money. he spent that. these hearings were about to happen when tommy corcoran paid a visit to senator ervin. all of a sudden, the next saturday morning, the hearings were canceled. i eventually cornered senator ervin asked him why.

well, you guys also discovered that hubert humphreys had gotten some money from hughes and i didn't think we should destroy the two-party system, were his exact words. watergate to send -- watergate got to some very specific things we have forgotten about. it was about corruption. i agree with david about the nature of the cover-up. the cover-up was -- why was the burglary happening? we didn't get to that. i think that's important to remember. >> he played a very important role in the committee. ms. stahl: i know he did. i was getting a lot of sources on the committee for recent stuff, day after day after day. scott set a trap to catch my source. [laughter] i'm not kidding. he told me -- my source told me that the committee was going to subpoena rosemary, and that they

were sending u.s. marshals to complete lease around the white house, every single gate all around the white house, in case she slipped out the back out the side, and that there were u.s. marshals all over the place. my source had been so accurate, day after day. so, cbs news sends cameramen all around the white house. they are taken away from the pentagon, taken away from every other place in the city, and they are calling up saying, there are no marshals here. i'm panicking, because it is supposed to be the lead story that night. i get scott on the phone and say, scott, can you confirm this story for me? it's 6:25. i'm on the air at 6:30. he starts laughing and says "gotcha." he planted the story with the guy he suspected. we are going to end with gordon. are there any other questions?

tell us who you are. >> i've been in public life are 34 years -- for 34 years. i came to pay my respects to lowell like her -- lowell weicker. to be a republican and speak about the republicans is a profile in courage. none of you seem to sense that. lowell made many enemies in the process within his own party and hurt his own political future. so that's 1.i want to make. -- one point i want to make. [applause] and the second point i want to make is i'm stunned that not all of you would have recognized that this was a huge, huge constitutional crisis, because you are seeking to remove from office someone who was elected by the american people. when did that happen before? and if you had failed to convince enough people in the country that this needed to happen, you wouldn't have had republican support.

you wouldn't have seen him removed some office. it would be depressing. the parallels i see the day are, you don't have lowell weickers in the republican party that are speaking out against the outrageous things that are happening and our kids are beginning to think it's normal that a president would act this way. [applause] ms. stahl: one of the most important things that has been said here is that our system of democracy really does work and the people really do run things. i've seen it a million times from watergate, a great example. your point is so well taken. you didn't introduce yourself. >> [indiscernible] i was elected to congress for 21 years. it was the best 21 years of my life. my biggest disappointment in

public life was when he did not win in 1988. i will tell you, if he had won, i think george bush the first would have won reelection, because lowell would have helped bring people together like he did with president ford. ms. stahl: i will let gordon wrap it up, unless there's another question. >> [indiscernible] the question i wanted to ask you, lesley, what's your impression of this? you were there this whole time. i remember seeing you do standups in front of the committee. what was your take as a member of the press? you have a good news and historical art. ms. stahl: when someone asks me about watergate, i remember -- there were long tables set up.

movie stars came. famous people, ceos showed up. everybody wanted to have a peek at this room and what was happening. it was the center of all life. if you are inside, it was raw excitement, electric excitement. and we were all friends. it wasn't just the democrats and the republicans. it was the press as well. somebody would write something funny. it would go up and down the press table, then to the committee, then it would come back around, as everybody read whatever the joke was an laugh. -- and laughed. i just amended this sense of oneness -- i just remember this sense of oneness. we were all together in this. i'm want to ask gordon -- i'm going to ask gordon to ask a question and wrap it up.

mr. freedman: when i was a young staffer, i don't know why i had the responsivity for doing this, i had a lot to do with going through the campaign files that were placed in the national archives. raise your hand if you worked on those files. ok. we would tropp do -- troop down to the national archives and go through files that we thought were routine campaign stuff. all of a sudden, i'm a kid in college looking at this stuff and i thought it was amazing. the point i'm making is there is a lot you can gain by looking at a campaign file, even if it doesn't have hard evidence against -- in it. i haven't heard a thing about looking at the trump files. my sense is that intentions and interactions, context, are in those documents. i just offer that. my question to the panel is, do

we have to go through this every time there is a questionable campaign and the president comes in -- either they might have been the person that perpetrated it or they may have to investigate the person they ran against? it seems like a terribly stressful thing to put the country through, when we have so many complex problems. and do we just rely on the good form of most presidents not to get us here, or do we need mechanisms? ms. stahl: or, finally, is this just such an extraordinary presidency? >> i don't know. i don't think we need any additional mechanism. a mechanism that we have and is not used is voting. just take a look and see the

interest of the american people in their own election. when you are down around 50%, that's a majority at 25% or 26%/24%, then you get some pretty crazy people at that level. so, i have to say to you that, if i was going to put the interest anywhere, it would be urging the american people to vote. i don't think you need anything additional. >> i relate it all to the 24-hour cycle. we've never seemed to have had a kardashian president. ms. stahl: [laughter] >> i agree with lowell that, once the campaign finance laws and special prosecutors, in particular, -- the idea was, look, if you have a president and you appoint someone within the executive branch to investigate the president, like cox, wouldn't it be better if we had someone

totally independent? really, there's a tremendous burden of proof on anybody who wants to change the system. and i think a little too much experiment in that direction caused a lot of harm to a lot of innocent people. >> i don't think we need more laws. we've got too many laws. we've been passing laws for 200 years. you would think we would be done by now. [laughter] we don't need more laws. we could have a little more self-restraint. we don't want to have the custom of banana republics criticizing -- criminalizing clinical differences. we've had efforts, the criminal prosecution of the governors of new jersey, wisconsin, texas. it would be nice if everybody exercised a little more self-restraint, but i don't know if that's going to happen. somebody thought it might get worse before it gets better.

i think it just might get worse, and it won't get better. that's just the world we seem to live in now, a much more polarized world. ms. stahl: wow. we are going to end on that. mr. rotunda: i hate to end on a downer. >> i'm a former special agent, u.s. treasury department. we had one rule. follow the money. we followed the money in the nixon case to raposo's offshore bank, which we could not touch. my question is, where's trump's money? [applause] >> well, i just want to say one

thing. the point that i made, and it also relates to everything else going on, out of 350 million americans, hillary clinton and donald trump? [laughter] ms. stahl: i rest my case. that sums it up. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you're watching american history tv. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and keep up with the latest history news. "afterwords," a temple university professor examines gender identity in his book "beyond trans, this gesture matter"? -- does gender matter?" when were talking about

transgender discrimination, i think we're really talking about something different which is about the predicate of those stereotypes. it's not so much about what you should and shouldn't do as a man or woman, but do you get to belong to the category of man or woman in the first place. and so, i think that's an important distinction to draw. transgender people just like anybody. book, thereand is a is something else going on when we talk about transgender to -- discrimination, which is about the longing for the categories themselves. >> right. and so you put forward in this book that we should eliminate those categories. --categories and a lot of different places, so from a birth certificate to college or professional level sports, and

everything in between, or most things in between. tonight "afterworsd," at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span2's booktv. onamerican history tv is c-span3 every weekend, featuring the viewing tours, archival films, and programs on the presidency, the civil war, and more. you're such clip from a recent program. -- here's a clip from a recent program. >> for these men who have never known a land they could call their own, the rebirth of palestine is the cause straight unfortunately, killings and hangings, bullets and tanks leave indelible marks in the minds of the young. proofs are easy to find in the middle east these days. wherever their parents were killed during one of the many

wars and conflicts of palestinians have known these last 30 years, these orphans are the words. -- wards. the memory of the parents lives on in the recollection of their sons and daughters. [inaudible] edward remarks -- >> the saddest intimacy is the young children for whom no alternative except but the bun. -- thing i see is the young children for whom no alternative exists but the gun. widening the educational experience of each child so that they are not defined by exercises -- the day is not defined by exercises with a gun.

there is a palestinian dialect that is different from arabic. there are traditions. there are costumes. there are family and -- their organization is different great cuisine, popular stories, so forth. you haven't palestine essentially a community, nevertheless a cohesive community which associates itself with the land. -- have in palestine essentially a community, nevertheless a cohesive community which associates itself with the land. ♪ i believe the present generation among the brazilians

cannot be called as moderate as the older generation. i think now it's the golden opportunity to have a peaceful settlement with the israelis between the palestinians and the israelis, provided the israelis will recognize the rights of self-determination of the palestinians and including establishment of their own independent state. >> going home for a short visit is the hope of most palestinians in the ds for a. during the month when the israeli military authorities implement this right of amalie reunion, thousands try to take advantage.

to get the permit is long and difficult. the screenings by both sides meticulous. but it is easier for palestinians wishing to leave the occupied areas, especially when they are not requesting a right of return. >> once by the bridge there are further checks, long hours of waiting before being called to board one of the buses. because the israelis process only 2 dozen buses each day, some have to return time after time, hoping tomorrow they will get their chance. on the other side of the river, there will be more security. body searches. which sometimes make it necessary to abandon gift for purchases -- gifts or purchases behind. this and otherh american history programs on our website, where all our video is archived.

that's c-span.org/history. join american history tv here on c-span3, this thursday, july theor a live program from new museum of the american revolution in philadelphia. we'll be joined by top museum staff to learn about their artifacts and exhibits, and they will field your questions on the american revolution. next, we discover -- we learn about artifacts during the construction -- we learn about artifacts discovered during the construction of the museum. constructing the museum, a team of archaeologists excavated the site a few blocks from independence hall and in the process eventually uncovered about 82,000 independent artifacts. up next on american history tv's "american artifacts," we will see