>> what was archibald cox doing? he was investigating the white house.igating the nixon administration, and so did so... i think the whole thing reeks of conspiracy. i think there is absolutely a comparison to be made between archibald cox's firing and james comey. the only other person who was investigating political corruption in the 20th century to be fired by sitting presiden president. >> we knew how it was going to turn out. >> you knew richard nixon was going to resign? >> i went out to dinner that night and told friends of mine there would be an impeachment resolution in the house on tuesday, and there were 20 of them. >> kat: i think comparisons between nixon and trump were hilarious. nixon was a skilled politician. obviously didn't work out in the end. trump has been a politician for a couple months. of all the people, just because. comparisons all day long. >> henry kissinger said sometimes paranoids have real enemies. >> eric: that was a great line in "the x-files" as well. pat buchanan was in the nixon white house when this was going on. mar

he told archibald cox to lay off about these white house tapes and archibald cox looked the president in he eye and would not do that. no, i'm not going to lay off. and so president nixon told the attorney general to fire archibald cox and the attorney general said no and resigned. and so then nixon told the deputy attorney general to fire archibald cox and the deputy attorney general, he, too, said, no, and he resigned. essentially he had to get the solicitor general to fire archibald cox and that became known as the saturday night massacre. but archibald cox, yeah, he did get fired. ultimately, he did get fired but you know what? he got the president fired, too. he is the reason those damning tapes eventually had to be released. and nixon's presidency was over less than three days after those tapes came out. so fire the investigators? sure. nixon proved you can do that. binixon also proved the consequences of doing that in the end for a president who has something to hide from those investigators. today president trump fired the director of the fbi, james comey. and we will have rea

archibald cox, archibald cox. >> he did get fired. : this is the -- archibald is a great name. no one naming their kids archibald anymore i blame him but left are delirious become disoriented. >> story brokeless than 10 minutes ago jim comey, has just been fired by donald trump. whoa! . >> huge, huge donald trump fans here tonight. >> i don't think he expected that response. . >> but -- [applause]. greg: that is what happened. that is what happened if you are assumption and audience don't match like when you think benghazi is hilarious, since last september, fox news has been pursuing the is it not right doingedly to uncover how the administration blew it when they blew it, why they blew it. and how they will continue to have blown it. and most importantly, how is this car still burning? so forgive if we don't share outrage over comey when with you find tragedy coverage so giddy, firing comey should have been welcome comey a walking back presenting problems for everyone trump firing him was the dog, proudly presenting a freshly caught

. >> in may of 1973, earl silbert is preparing to hand the case over to archibald cox.ere are 39 principals involved in this case. and he said, number 39, richard m. nixon, president of the united states. >> what if this trail leads into the oval office at the white house? >> well, as i replied then, the trail should be followed wherever it leads. (announcer vo) when you have type 2 diabetes there's a moment of truth. and now with victoza® a better moment of proof. victoza lowermy and blood sugar than the leading branded pill, which didn't get me to my goal. lowers my a1c better than the leading branded injectable. the one i used to take. (jim) victoza® lowers blood sugar in three ways. and while it isn't for weight loss, victoza® may help you lose some weight. non-insulin victoza® comes in a pen and is taken once a day. (announcer vo) victoza® is not recommended as the first medication to treat diabetes and is not for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take victoza® if you have a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple

guest: this is from the day that attorney general eliot richardson appointed archibald cox as a white house special prosecutor. as you can tell, richard nixon was not at all afraid of archibald cox, who is famous mainly for labor law, not criminal law. he had been an advisor to president kennedy and was president kennedy's solicitor general. richard nixon's attitude towards archibald cox would change radically over the next few months, when he subpoenaed richard nixon's tapes, mainly because richard nixon knew that those tapes would prove he was guilty of obstruction of justice, taking an active part in what they call the watergate cover-up. it wasn't so much a cover-up of the watergate break-in as a cover-up of other crimes committed by people involved in the watergate break-in. host: how did you get your materials for the miller center? >> we get some directly from the national archives. have converted all these tapes into electronic sound files and we, as well as the archives put those sound files online for free so everyone who wants to hear them take -- these tapes can do so. wit

you look at archibald cox who was fired by nixon. he was supported by both democrats and republicans. you look at jim comey, who was fired by donald trump. he was criticized by both republicans and democrats. and when you look at archibald cox, he found evidence connecting nixon to the cover up of watergate when you look at jim comey, he openly publicly says he found no evidence connecting donald trump to russian collusion and finally, there's the succession after archibald cox was fired, then the attorney general didn't support it, he resigned and so the deputy attorney general, he resigned in this case, the attorney general and the deputy stand by the decision the president has made. so it is not only not the same thing, it's exactly the opposite. a backward mirror. liz: archibald cox was a special prosecutor at that time; right? >> yeah. big, big, big difference. i think what's going on is the democrats are focusing on a special prosecutor because they don't want anybody looking at andrew mcabe who was hillary clinton's choice to

it was the cover-up of that and the ongoing inquiry by firing archibald cox that created the firestorm articles of impeachment in the house. i am a democrat. i except the fact that trump became my president. thisoral compass in country is at an all time low. i have never seen it like this before. i don't have any faith in our political system, be it republican or democrat. i don't think we should have a special counsel. we have people in place to do the job. -- let the point where trump do what he wants to do. half the country supports him with whatever he says and does. they have a pride in his ability to do the job. let him do what he wants to do and let the chips fall where they may. the spirit of the comment is terrific. our democracy, if it is being compromised in ways we are unfamiliar with, that we before, wecountered have an obligation to get to the bottom of how that might occur and the steps we might could take to prevent it from occurring again. whether there was involvement with the trumpet campaign, i think we need to understand the source of it. i am looking for mr. rosen

that's reference to president nixon's firing of special prosecutor archibald cox which led to resignation of the attorney general and deputy attorney general. it wasn't even seven or eight minutes after the news broke that comey was fired you're seeing reference to nixonian and archibald cox and saturday night massacre. >> both sides of the ailes now. republicans very critical of the timing here and that's what is the focus. this morning a range of other former officials with insight pushing back against the comey firing. former u.s. attorney, the federal prosecutor in new york who was fired by the president after being told he was staying on tweeting, everyone who cares about independence and rule of law in america should be troubled by the timing and the reasoning of comey firing. period. >> former obama administration officials also firing up their twitter feeds. former attorney general eric holder writing to the career men and women at doj/fbi. . >> this from the former white house communications director who is also now a cnn contributor. this should not be sugarcoated. firing comey

that's as a result of the weekend firing of special prosecutor archibald cox -- >> reporter: the so-callednight massacre, when nixon's attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned when the president ordered them to fire the watergate special prosecutor archibald cox, who like comey was fiercely independent. >> there was a widespread feeling that there was need for an investigation. >> do you think the watergate comparison is a fair one? >> yes. what we see in both situations is a president feeling that an investigation was getting too close for comfort and trying to shut it down. >> reporter: one key difference between now and then, there was a select committee on watergate holding hearings on capitol hill. there were actual tapes recorded by nixon in the oval office promising direct proof of a cover-up. and there were dogged reporters at "the washington post" and elsewhere piecing it all together. >> the difference now is that the only one of those checks that is there is the press. and the president has spent a great deal of his presidency undermining the press. >> we need woodw

it was the cover-up of that and the ongoing inquiry by firing archibald cox that created the firestorm articles of impeachment in the house. i am a democrat. i except the fact that trump became my president. thisoral compass in country is at an all time low. i have never seen it like this before. i don't have any faith in our political system, be it republican or democrat. i don't think we should have a special counsel. we have people in place to do the job. -- let the point where trump do what he wants to do. half the country supports him with whatever he says and does. they have a pride in his ability to do the job. let him do what he wants to do and let the chips fall where they may. the spirit of the comment is terrific. our democracy, if it is being compromised in ways we are unfamiliar with, that we before, wecountered have an obligation to get to the bottom of how that might occur and the steps we might could take to prevent it from occurring again. whether there was involvement with the trumpet campaign, i think we need to understand the source of it. i am looking for mr. rosen

. >> i have not seen anything like this since 1973 when richard nixon fired archibald cox. >> nixon didn't want when he did come out of the woodwork, that's when he famously said i am not a crook. >> firing archibald cox was the first shovel into richard nixon's political grave. and it always, always works like that. >> summer comparing this to watergate. >> it's understandable that some are comparing it to watergate. >> echoes of watergate. >> these are the kinds of mistakes that were made during watergate. >> archibald cox, are you worried about a history repeating itself? >> sean: the level of ignorance here is breathtaking. the liberal crackpots in the media, they are now unhinged and suffering from a syndrome. trump derangement syndrome. they are willing to say anything, no matter how crazy it sounds. they want to damage this president and get them out of office and delegitimize him. the real reason president trump fire james comey is because the former fbi director was incompetent. he failed to faithfully execute the laws of this country and followed the principles of equal justice u

. >> i have not seen anything like this since october 20th, 1973, when president nixon fired archibald cox, the watergate special prosecutor. just like donald trump didn't want to talk a lot now, nixon didn't want to talk a lot when nixon came out of the woodwork, that's when he famously said i'm not a crook. >> firing archibald cox was the first shovel into richard nixon's political grave, and it always, always works like that. >> some are comparing this to watergate? >> well, it's understandable that people are comparing this to watergate. >> the capitol is filling with echos of watergate. >> these are the kinds of mistakes that were made during watergate. >> the firing of archibald cox set in motion a series of events that let to the downfall of richard nixon. are you worried about history repeating itself? >> if there's obstruction of justice thiss completely -- [ indiscernible ] >> is this a fair comparison? >> you know, there are many pair throels watergate. >> sean: -- parallels to watergate. >> sean: this is not nixon. this is not the saturday night massacre. that's not bad. exact

then comes thursday or friday and elliott switches, gets cold feet, comes down on the side of archibald coxand the president is there now with cox having a press conference, saying i'm going after more tapes and he had to act. this was forced on president nixon by the situation he was in. with regard to comey, whether mr. trump did it january 21st or a week from now made no difference because it is not that big a deal. excuse me. here is where i disagree with folks, michael. that was a huge deal at a time of -- the arabs just imposed an oil embargo on the united states. it was a very dramatic october. >>> the watergate burglary was liddy and company trying to go into larry o'brien's office at the dnc, which happened to be at the watergate hotel. this is an enemy state meddling in a u.s. election. to me, apples and oranges. because this is the far more serious of the two. >> look, michael, you're a little off on timing. the break-in was in june of '72. the fire of cox was in october of '73. >> i am talking about watergate versus the russian probe. >> the initial event in watergate was a thir

and arguably worse, because jim comey is head of the whole fbi, archibald cox was only the deputy fbi director. president trump will now be able to install one of his stooges into that job. but from now on, the fbi is going to be directed by someone who answers to donald trump and responds and will supervise the investigation of donald trump. that's what's going to happen now. >> even if there's a special prosecutor named, which is now what obviously many democrats are calling for, but many on capitol hill are saying might be the necessary step in order to have some validity, even if there is a special prosecutor, they're still going to rely on the fbi? >> special prosecutors are lawyers, they are prosecutors, they're not investigators. when i worked on the iran contra investigation, we were independent, but we worked hand in glove with fbi agents. even though there's a special prosecutor, they will rely on fbi agents who will answer to, ultimately a donald trump employee, someone who will be appointed for the specific reason of not investigating donald trump. >> when you said that th

he fired archibald cox. others resign because of the firing of the president sentiment across america so strong against president nixont for trying to intervene in this legal process that ultimately paid a heavy price for his any conduct.esiden i don't know whether there's any the president trump in this collusion. i'm not going to assume that.bu they shouldn't. in fairness there should be a credible investigation by professionals. shutting down the investigation with the fbi at this point closes the door of gaining information -- valuable information so that we anders and who was involved in the effort to undermine the american presidential election. i'm not sitting here and defend a james comey is a person. i do stand as director of the fbi who believed that our intelligence agencies believed that this was a credible threat to the democracy of the united states and deserved a professional prosecutor's investigation. for that reason, comey in this effort should continue to have been dismissed, let's at leas

he fired archibald cox. others resigned because of that firing. the public sentiment in america was so strong against president nixon for trying to intervene in this legal process that ultimately he paid a heavy, heavy price for his conduct. i don't know whether there is any involvement of president trump in this collusion. i am not going to assume that. i shouldn't. in fairness there should be an investigation, a credible investigation by professionals. but shutting down the investigation by the f.b.i. at this point closes the door of gaining information, valuable information, so that we understand who was involved in this effort to undermine the american presidential election. i'm not standing here in defense of james comey has a person. i do stand here in defense of that director of the f.b.i. who believe as our intelligence agencies believed that this was an credible threat to the democracy of the united states and deserved a special prosecutor's investigation. for that reason, comey and his levers should continue but having dismissed him, let

october 'p 3, richard nixon. >> '73, my bad. >> in 1973 richard nixon had his underlings fire archibald coxause cox wanted tapes which would incriminate the president. >> yeah. >> at that point it was john dean's word against the president's word and the president knew that he could be incriminated by the tapes and he didn't want the special prosecutor to have them so it was an obstruction of justice. in this instance we don't know enough about where the fbi investigation is leading to know if trump in an awkward clumsy way is trying to obstruction justice. one of the big differences here is that cox was hired to investigate watergate. james comey was hired by president obama to be a very good non-partisan fbi director. there is someone under comey, i'm sure, who is running the russia hacking investigation. what we have to watch for now is whether the white house interferes in any way. we know that comey asked for more money for the investigation. is the fbi going to get that money? is somebody going to try to change what's going on by the probes at the fbi? that's what we have to watch for

have not seen any wow anything like this since 1973 when president nixon fired archibald cox, the watergate specialec prosecutor. >> the only winner, the only people that are going to be happy tonight are sitting in the kremlin.ng this is the result of letting someone like putin throw marbles on the stairs, banana peels on the sidewalk for american democracy and saying i want this to stop. >> tonight president trump put himself first. >> a little whiff of fascism tonight. a little whiff of "i don't careu about the law, i am the boss." i do see the romanoff aspect of the situation. the people he trusts are his family members. his bodyguards, his body men.yg it's monarchical. >> firing archibald cox was the first shovel into president nixon's grave and it always works like that. >> sean: a whiff of fascism? this is beyond o it's not the surprising. the liberal media wants to destroy president trump. they want him out of office. now they will do and say anything to keep that happening. the destroy-trump-media is the same people that colluded with hillary rodham clinton during her campaign and

he was able to fire special prosecutor archibald coxe. settled on the appointment of a new prosecutor, a man who turned out to be a very independent prosecutor who later uncovered evidence that led to president nixon's downfall. rosenstein, who is now the deputy attorney general, because the attorney general has recused himself of this investigation has to make that decision. is washington post says it clear they will have final say. attemptedey general to pen his firing on him. so would be to do the appointment of a special prosecutor. your reaction to that. >> i agree with that tire late. president trump attended use his memo for the basis for firing director comey when mr. trump yesterday heted had already made up his mind and he was simply looking for some sort of paper justification. trump doesn't need investigation. here he made up of a justification on the back of a justice department official who's going to want to do to make sure can his reputation and professional integrity is not tainted by misuse of presidential authority. >>

to go back in time, archibald cox was the watergate special prosecutor, he was closing in on presidentnixon and president refused to turn over tapes of some of his white house conversations, mr. nixon ordered firing of mr. cox. rather than comply with the order to fire him, the attorney general elliot richardson and deputy ag, william ruckleshaus, they resigned. they didn't gohrough, stepped down. jeff sessions, current attorney general, deputy rod rosenstein, they recommended fire to president trump. all reached a such a level, official twitter account of the nixon presidential library is not this out. fun fact, president nixon never fired director of the fbi. hashtag, not nixonian. senator chuck schumer have called for the russia investigation to be stepped up to similar level what we saw in the watergate days. they have been calling it, stepped up calls for pegs prosecutor to be appointed which exactly what archibald cox was so. neil: even though other concurrent investigations going on in the house and senate, there are a lot of investigations going on. reporter: some john mccain w

most people think that archibald cox was fired by elliott, you know, abrams and -- >> richardson. richardson, i mean. they forget the whole process. they have the vaguest idea. >> nixon went and chopped their heads off. the truth of it is can you tell a deal to turn over transcripts or some reason of his tapes, so they wouldn't have to put all the garbage in there as well. i'm talking about some unfortunate language by john and give it to everybody accepted it, so archibald cox said, no, we're not going to do it. we're going to subpoena all of these tapes. and richardson on friday night, i said al, is ellio aboard? he said, yes, the next day, elliot wasn't a board, and i sent nixon a memo, and i said you're going to have to fire elliott. and he said come on over. and i was in the oval office, lou. and i was sitting there, and he talked for an hour about it. the russians and all of that was going on. henry was in moscow. and nixon said after he said he's going to fire. he said if i have to go down to a gs7, i'm going to do it. and so he said you better go this way because elliott's

it's monarchical >> wiring archibald cox was the first shovel into president nixon's grave and it always works like that. >> sean: a width of fascism? this is beyond outrageous but it's not the surprising. the liberal media wants to destroy president trump. they want him out of office. now they will do and say anything to keep that happening. the destroy-trump-media is the same people that colluded with hillary rodhamlinton during her campaign and of course they tried to help her win the white house. they ignore the fact that thebr. right there, you can see them. having a private email server that contained secret -- top-secret -- special access programs. classified information. we are the only ones in the media that told you the truth about the clintons while the rest of the media covered it all up and colluded. one more thing about the destroy-trump-media, they have been lying for months to the american people about this trump-russia fake news talking point. there is zero evidence so far that donald trump's campaign and transition ever colluded with the russians. it's a bizarre conspir

that is the only way that we can proceed given the fact that james comey is now a modern day archibald cox that has been fired as the chief investigator of a sitting president of the united states. >> thank you so much. appreciate your time, sir. >> thank you. >> i want to bring in my panel. let me start with you. the white house said they lost confidence in comey's ability to effectively lead the bureau. new leadership is essential to restore public trust. you have both been reporting this evening that the white house did not anticipate this fall out. how can that possibly be. >> it's a great question and i asked directly that how could you have not expected this and they told me that they believed that republicans would stand by them and the democrats were never a fan of james comey so they thought they would be happy that he was gone. but the reality of this how it went. and they did try to alert people in a bipartisan way. they called diane feinstein, a top democrat on the committee but boy the white house now tonight, i just came over here from the white house. the lights were still o

. >> firing archibald cox was the first shovel in richard nixon's political grave. >> as you heard, nixonianaise to describe the firing of fbi director james comey. reminds some of the saturday night massacre, october of 1973, when he ordered dismissal of white house prosecutor archibald cox, and now a tweet from president donald trump has some wondering if he may have taped his conversations, another famous nixon move. sean spicer dodged the subject and president trump had little to say when judge jeanine pirro asked him. >> did president trump record conversations with former director comey? >> assuming you're referring to the tweet. i talked to the president. the president has nothing further to add on that. >> what about the idea in a tweet you said there might be tape recordings. >> that i can't talk about, i won't talk about that. all i want us for comey to be honest and i hope he will be, i am sure he will be, i hope. >> i have somebody that knows a thing or two about white house tapes, the man that told nixon to burn his. patrick buchanon, former senior adviser to president nixon, sy

after richard nixon fired archibald cox in 1973 you had barry goldwater the immediate predecessor as the republican presidential nominee condemning him. we have a more polarized politics and the republican leadership and rank and file for the most part almost entirely on capitol hill are basically saying we are part of a common enterprise with president trump. most of our voters still support him and therefore they have unwilling to defend the checks and balances that james clapper talked about. i would say there is still political risk in this, though, because if you look at 2018, i think by far the biggest risk to republicans is that those voters who are ambivalent at best about trump will view them as too compliant and not exercising sufficient checks and balances on him, and so this course, which they believe is safe for now, ultimately i think could be riskier if they are seen as not providing meaningful oversight. >> it's easier in watergate, that was a real crime. this was a legislative endowed and created prosecutor. you don't have that here. comey was not popular with democr

>> archibald cox, 1973, when donald trump was about 25, 27 years old. you think about the firing of the independent counsel, then the fallout with the attorney general and the assistant attorney general all within one weekend. donald trump's campaign, which is 108, 109 days old has been like one long saturday night massacre if you go back to sally gates who just testified, and several key people, in terms of national security with flynn and others. the press den see, to have these removals, now the head of the fbi where as j edgar hoofer sat in office for 30, 40, 50 years, and came me has been removed within the first 100 dhairks is going to blow up. >> just to put this in perspective for some of the younger viewers, saturday night massacre, j. edgar hoover reviewed the process, and you are saying there's a parallel here? that was historic in american history that that hatched. you are saying this is along those lines, the watergate scandal? >> he also fired william sessions as the head. bill clinton did this as well, but not in the first 100 days of hi

during the saturday night massacre he wanted to fire archibald cox. he also refused.th of them resigned. who then ultimately fired the water gate special prosecutor on nixon's behalf? no googling. the answer, plus the morning newspaper front pages when we come back. carpool? try zyrtec® it's starts working hard at hour one and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. >>> okay. before the break we asked you a trivia question. who was the justice department official who finally agreed to fire the water gate special prosecutor after both his bosses refused and resigned? the answer, this man. robert bork. highly controversial and rejected supreme court nominee. this explosive headline, president trump firing james comey is already the big story in the morning newspapers. it's front page, top of fold of the washington post plainly reading trump fires fbi director. the new york times morning headlines says trump fires comey amid russia investigation. below, the president's entire letter to comey and when readers open u

instead, he offers to provide summaries of the conversations which special prosecutor archibald cox rejectsn october 1973, the saturday night massacre, president nixon has the special prosecutor fired and forces the resignation of two attorney generals who had refused to fire him. meanwhile, the investigation continued and so did the cover-up. it would later be discovered that nixon was insisting his aides find a way to pay off the watergate burglars using so-called hush money and continue to shield the white house through lies and false testimony. there was also the issue of a nearly 20-minute gap in one of the white house tapes that had been subpoenaed. >> how it was caused is still a mystery to me. >> reporter: the supreme court wasn't buying it. by july 1974, justices insisted president nixon hand over the recordings of his white house conversations, despite his claims of executive privilege. nixon delayed so the house of representatives voted to impeach him for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of congress. nixon later handed over most of the tapes. >> that smoking g

if you go back and look at what happened after richard nixon fired archibald cox in 1973. across party lines uniting to defend the rule of law. barry goldwater was the republican presidential nominee before richard nixon. the president who fired cox. the aba held an emergency meeting to condemn the action. aflcio condemned it and called for impeachment. not saying we're anywhere near that today, but i'm saying president trump has i think absorbed the lesson that republicans and congress are willing to accept almost any infringement on traditional checks and pbalances because thy view them on the political project with them. they want to decide the legislation. he has signalled his direction he will fire sally yates and the district attorney. people investigating people in his orbit. the real question is is there push back? without it, you can bet this is not the last time we have seen some of the traditional boundaries. >> jason, what would be push back? we hear talk of special prosecutor. first of all, we don't know what there is to prosecute. there is not a criminal inves

if you're looking for a place in history, i love the video you had during the last hour about archibald coxrtain that don't. but the ones that do are these, nixon fired archibald cox and his intention was to shut down the watergate investigation. he was saying essentially as we heard from again, your wonderful conversation with sara sanders, nixon was saying move on this investigation has gone on long enough. so he fired the special prosecutor, sent fbi agents to surround their offices with the idea that they might seize the evidence and that was going to be it. and the only reason the things changed was that members of the senate, especially members of nixon's own party republicans said this is not something that shows respect for our institutions and our democracy. this is the way an autocrat behaves and you cannot have an investigation done by your own justice department. they demanded a new special prosecutor and only because of that protest both in the senate and the house and by americans across the country was nixon forced to hire a new special prosecutor, leon jaworsxi just as tough

>> it is in the sense that president nixon fired archibald cox whose biography i wrote after the whole watergate cover-up had boiled to a crescendo, and cox subpoenaed these eight critical recordings from the white house and nixon wouldn't give them to him, federal courts ordered him to, he defied and fired cox. so we had reached a point of kind of a culminating event. here, this was early on in the presidency. the president does have power, for instance, to remove an fbi director, although it is rare. the fact this was tied in, however, to a potential investigation of either president trump or his own administration or campaign, that's what does make the comparison somewhat apt. >> president trump thinks it is a witch-hunt, makes him far from unique among his predecessors. >> that's true. pretty much every president who has been the subject of special prosecutor investigations viewed them with disdain, treated them as witch hadn't. hunts. certainly when i interviewed president clinton, he felt as if from the moment he entered the white house, he barely turned the key on the door and t

instead, he offers to provide summaries of the conversations which special prosecutor archibald cox rejectser 1973, the saturday night massacre, president nixon has the special prosecutor fired and forces the resignation of two attorney generals who had refused to fire him. meanwhile, the investigation continued and so did the cover-up. it would later be discovered that nixon was insisting his aides find a way to pay off the watergate burglars using so-called hush money and continue to shield the white house through lies and false testimony. there was also the issue of a nearly 20-minute gap in one of the white house tapes that had been subpoenaed. >> how it was caused is still a mystery to me. >> reporter: the supreme court wasn't buying it. by july 1974, justices insisted president nixon hand over the recordings of his white house conversations, despite his claims of executive privilege. nixon delayed so the house of representatives voted to impeach him for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of congress. nixon later handed over most of the tapes. >> that smoking gun was

in the 1970s there were no democrats saying they had lost confidence in archibald cox. democrats who are slamming donald trump today they were complaining about james comey that he delivered false testimony saying huma abiden had forwarded thousands of emails to wiener's computer. they had to back off that. they were throwing charges against the clinton people and now he is st. james and donald trump is richard nixon for firing him. which is it? >> let me make one point of this. you have to replace the names on this. if president barack obama had fired james comey on october 28th republicans people like -- they would have exploded. how awful. total white house cover-up, bad for business. you can't get mad at democrats for saying there is something fishy here. i think we can all agree blake from arizona said the timing is questionable, which is why i go back to my previous point now more than ever a select committee, you're right, eight different investigations happening. how about make it one and save the taxpayers some money and have a commission deal with this. if the

are comparing this to the saturday night massacre, when president nexen ordered the firing of archibald cox. the special prosecutor was looking into the third rate burglary that led to the watergate scandal and brought nixon down. timothy naftali says that the timing deepens suspicions that president trump is covering something up. disagree,er papers saying president trump was right to fire comey. "the wallis what street journal" is saying in their editorial, that comey deserves dismissal, that the fbi director created more than enough mistakes in the last year to be dismissed. comey has always been concerned more about the politics of his own reputation, political precisely in a way we do not want the leader of the fbi to be here it -- to be. genie: yesterday, the former socialist prime minister, manuel valls, says he is ready to the -- is ready to lead the socialist party. flo: there was a twist this saysng because on marche! -- in a way, the damage is already done for the socialists. -- can see this front page "the end of the socialist party." it was set on the radio yesterday that the s

president nixon wanted special prosecutor investigating watergate archibald cox fired but the attorney general refused and resigned. the richard nixon library responded to commentary that nixon's firing was nixonian. in a tweet they tweeted, fun fact, president nixon never fired him. >>> today president trump plans to meet with russia's top dip plea mat. the white house meeting with sergey lavrov is the highest meeting the president has ever had with a public official. the syrian war is likely to top the agenda. >>> the trump administration has announced planned to arm syria's kurdish fighters. he said they're the best bet to free the city, but kurds angers turkey, a key nato ally. the turks have been fighting in southern turkey for years. turkey's president is expected to visit president trump next week. >>> south korea's new president says he's willing to visit north korea under the right circumstances. he said he'll go anywhere. >>> it's unclear why there was an investigation but officials say there is no release of radioactive material. it was discovered as part of a routine inspec

this is the same as when nixon hired archibald cox. you can't control your own investigator. anybody who believes that the reason that comey was fired by president trump now is because comey was too helpful to the trump k578 pain in criticizing hillary last summer is absurd. anybody who believes that i have a nice bridge to sell them between brooklyn and manhattan. >> here the -- clear that the motive for his firing was to stop an investigation the president feared. i don't know why he feared it because we don't know what was going on there. he had to stop the investigation and the only way that anyone will have kchd that there's a investigation going on would be if there's an independent prosecutor appointed. if there is not, we -- >> congressman, director comey is the only -- >> that his -- >> can figure that out? >> this is the equivalent or worse than the saturday night massacre by presidents nixon. >> congressman -- >> why not if the president really has nothing to hide and he's not involved in any kind of a coverup. at this point why not wait until the investigation's o

i know nixon still fired archibald cox, but they were forced to replace another special prosecutor.not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than a special counsel. do you think there is any chance you could get legislation from republicans to effectively police the president? >> well, i think it will be tough because some people are defending this decision. but i believe it's something we got to do. bottom line here is public confidence. and if the administration doesn't have anything to hide, they ought to be helping with this because otherwise this issue will dog them for years and it will just keep being a dark cloud over whatever they do. they should be cooperateding. so i'm going to urge my republican colleagues to join some kind of effort to create a special prosecutor position because as i say, otherwise it just keeps going on. now, i had a fun idea in the middle of the night, chris, i think our on committee, the intelligence committee, should hire james comey to direct our investigation. knows the subject. man of integrity. i'll float that and see what kind of reaction i get.

proceedings went forward under nixon, the element that for a special prosecutor was the firing of archibald cox. that precipitated it and then taper found. the effort to cover up was really the crux of the proceedings against richard nixon. in this instance, only an investigation will determine whether or not there has been sufficient evidence and prosecution that would warrant going forward with if you can on the issue of obstruction of justice and the issue of a cover-up, the issue of tapes, the issue of more memorandums, and more attempt by the president to stop the investigation for general flynn or the investigations going forward dealing with russian collusion or involvement in the 2016 election. investigations are part of the democratic process. this is not an attack. this is a process that the constitutional founding fathers, who set this very important document, this very vibrant document, the constitution, set out some america to be strong. and it's important that we be strong. host: the first calls for minnesota on the independent line. derek, go ahead. caller: good morning, america.

he fired the first special prosecutor, archibald cox. cox was eventually replaced by leon jaworski who kept pushing the investigation toward the president to the point where the president was going to be impeached. so at that point the president resigned. a special prosecutor was appointed this evening by the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein after democrats in congress led by the senate's minute in order leader chuck schumer demanded, demand that he appoint a special prosecutor. >> deputy attorney general rosenstein sat in the judiciary committee and promised to appoint a special prosecutor at the appropriate time. that time is right now. >> this evening, rod rosenstein announced in a statement, i determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority around appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter. former fbi director robert mueller is rod rosenstein's choice for special prosecutor. in the spring of 1968 when donald trump graduated from college and then embarked on a successful missi

one week later professor archibald cox was sworn in as special watergate prosecutor. like director comey who is leading the investigation into russian interference in our election, archibald cox was eventually fired by the president for doing his job. the night that archibald cox was fired by president nixon for investigating watergate, he sa said, whether ours should continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for congress and ultimately the american people. he's right. the american people deserve a thorough independent investigation into whether this administration obstructed justice and the extent of russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. they need to know it because we are a democracy. we don't hide things like this. we get the facts. we get the truth, the whole truth, and knock but the truth. -- nothing but the truth. that's what our democracy is about and that is what our justice system is about. but they also need to know it because our democracy is the basis of our freedoms. and if we don't pocket our democracy -- protect our de

president nixon fired archibald cox the special prosecutor in october of 1973. it was one of the most significant presidential assaults on the rule of law in our history. i think we're witnessing something akin to that. donald trump doesn't like -- he is a doory phrase here but important. divided sovereignty goes back to the greek city states the idea you have a rule of law and power is divided among different bodies so that you have a balance. balance is not what he wants. he wants control. and i think that's what we're seeing tonight. >> um-hum. i want to read something this was just tweeted by the president saying chuck schumer recently i do not have confidence in him james comey any longer then acts so indignant. >> kevin madden kefren what do you think of that? >> well i think that argument holds up for only a short period of time. i mean it is true that democrats on capitol hill have vested that they have lost confidence in james comey. but that only answers one question which is why didn't the president then do it when he first came into office. and i thi