getting in, right off the bat when he got in, things went badly right way. >> all eyes will be on fred thompson when he walks on the stage tonight. his first debate since he joined the presidential race. and abc news spent months digging out videos shedding light on thompson's role as a young lawyer investigating the watergate scandal. >> fred thompson made his move years ago leading watergate and president nixon. a different less valiant picture emerges from listening to the white house audiotapes made at the time as president nixon plotted in the oval office. thompson's job was to lead the republican side of the investigation. nixon worried that thompson's democratic counterpart sam dash would outsmart thompson. as the investigation picked up speed, nixon grew increasingly concerned about thompson standing up to the democrats. speaking here with with haig. >> weeks later, thompson was still being described in the oval office as not very smart but at least beginning to play ball. >> not smart, but he's friendly. see, that's a bad way to start a presidential campaign. your first debate? maybe b

there's no fred thompson legislative achievement that he was trying to run on.but still, he's a big guy, played the district attorn on "law and order." he totally looks like he's in charge. republicans loved the idea of him. this was a poll from before fred thompson got into the race in the summer of 2007. plenty of other republicans were running at this time. the republicans were competing with each other for the nomination. money was being raised and spent. fred thompson was not participanting but he was for a time at the top of the polls.

the cover-up with former white house counsel john dean and senate watergate committee counsel fred thompson. from the watergate office building, this is about 45 minutes. >>> good evening, everyone, and welcome. i'm mary jordan. i'm the editor of "washington post" live which is division of the newspaper which organizes forums and debates. a very special thanks tonight to "washington post" chairman don graham and publisher katherine waynus, our host, and a big thank you to penzance, the owner of the -- warren is a key player in the watergate scandal. and what you're going to hear onstage, there are lots of people in the audience who loomed large in watergate and i see a couple of them there. alexander butterfield, the man who revealed a taping system from the oval office came all the way from california tonight. and earl filbert, former u.s. attorney for the district of columbia profited quite a bit on "all the president's men." it was on the sixth floor downstairs in this building that 40 years ago this week there was a botched break-in. burglars working for president nixon who started it a

there's no fred thompson legislative achievement that he was trying to run on.nd order." he totally looks like he's in charge. republicans loved the idea of him. this was a poll from before fred thompson got into the race in the summer of 2007. plenty of other republicans were running at this time. the republicans were competing with each other for the

fred thompson was not

first three are john dean, who was the white house counsel to president nixon. [ applause ] >> fred thompson, who was the chief minority counsel of the republicans on the senate watergate committee. [ applause ] >> and richard benviniste who was the lead prosecutor in the prosecutor's office. [ applause ] >> the discussion among them will be moderated by timothy naptali, a historian and former director of the president nixon library and museum where he created a watergate exhibit. tim? you're on. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. first of all, i want to thank mary jordan. and secondly, i'm going to sit down. what we're going to do now is set up the -- set up the story a little bit for you so that those of you who are listening here or watching it on the web and are too young to have either experienced watergate because you were alive at the time or your high school history class didn't get past 1965, we're going to set it up because we have a remarkable opportunity tonight to listen to people who were there, and then we'll take some questions from the audience and pose basically a few of

. >> there are people in this audience who think of fred thompson as a dramatic performer in "law & order." for historians, fred thompson's greatest role was when he asked a particular question to alexander butterfield. would you please set that up? because that changes the whole investigation. maybe also his life, i don't know, but certainly the whole investigation. so senator, tell us about asking alexander butterfield the big questions. >> this was a monday. the friday afternoon and said, we've just been interviewing a guy by the name of alexander butterfield. and there's a taping system in the white house. we immediately went to urban and baker and over the weekend they decided to -- that we needed to immediately, you know, get in before the cameras. so that happened monday. >> and were you surprised that president nixon had a taping system? >> yes. to say the least. up to that point, it looked like it was going to play out like so many cases we're all familiar with is played out. it's a he said/she said. and john's testimony was very effective, but haldeman and ehrli ehrlichman, they

what you and fred thompson keep talking about keeps coming up. in post 9/11, is there more going on down at pennsylvania avenue in the name of national security that we should know? and would that taping system -- maybe we don't know. you study the presidency now. >> yes, i have. i don't know what's going on. i know that a president, if the country is attacked, has a responsibility to respond to that. he will put things into motion that he thinks will be responsive. whether it's outside the law, i have no way of knowing. i do know president obama brought in someone to run his conflicts and ethics office. the question of national security, these threats are with us all the time. every president is going to respond to them in some way. the problem is that when national security is used to justify political activity, and i think that's what happened to me. at least that's what i bought into, in 1971. it was wrong then. it's wrong today. >> what do you think, the institutions, legacy of watergate, enough checks and balances that that kind of thing ca

former candidate fred thompson joins us. it's quite a choice. is it a rumor? >> i am always giddy on the rumor side when it come is to washington. >> greta: it's not unrealistic she may be on the roster. >> no question about it. she is an outstanding person, everybody knows that. one person's opinion doesn't make any sense. from romney's side, doesn't make any sense from her side. i don't think romney wants to spend the next few months talking about the bush administration policies with regard to iron or north korea or anything else that takes the focus off of him. i don't think she wants to get down in the mud in the political arena. she said time and time again, she policy person. this campaign is getting dirtier by the minute. i think that she doesn't want to be used to attack barack obama which is vice president's role would be. she would be attacked from the black leadership who determines what is popular for black politicians to do and not do, and she knows all this. i don't think she wants to do or spend her life that way. i'm just geflg. >> greta: gove

to thet homeland security and government affairs committee -- under the leadership of chairman fred thompson. that was back in 1998. that's a long time ago, 14 years ago. i've been concerned ever since about the growing threat of cyber attack, along with my dear friend and colleague on the committee, senator collins. our committee has held multiple hearings on cyber security. that is the new homeland security and governmental affairs committee. and we weren't alone. there have been numerous hearings over the past several years and markups by multiple committees in both the senate -- many held by our colleague, senator rockefeller and senator feinstein in the commerce and senate intel committees -- as well as in the house. and those deliberations and discussions were informed by numerous government and private-sector studies on the dangers that lurk in cyberspace. so this bill didn't just come out of nowhere. we reported a bill out of our committee, a lot of hearings, open markup. we began at the majority leader's direction to negotiate with the other committees, particularly commerce and int

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also i've noted concern of former senator fred thompson who took a position on this that says, i believe this will result in encreasing narrow pool of public servants who are more likely to be wealthy and live in the washington, d.c. area, that is if we don't pass this piece of legislation. he said in 1960, president kennedy had 286 positions to fill, secretaries, undersecretaries and administrator. by the end of the clinton administration, there were 914 positions with these titles. there's an argument to say a lot of these positions shouldn't be in the federal government but nevertheless, under the constitution, the constitution says under the article 2, section 2, the appointments clause, i'll cut right to the phrase i'd like to refer to, which is congress may by law vest the appointments of such inferior officers as they think proper. therefore, as i read the constitution, we have a duty and responsibility to review this and look at this. so here we have a situation where 79 senators in a very bipartisan way came together after nine different commissions and looking at things and the