bob haldeman and john ehrlichman.been my privilege to know. >> when he gets rid of haldeman and ehrlichman, he's also planning his defense. >> the watergate scandal broke wide open today. the two closest men to the president, h.r. haldeman and john ehrlichman, have resigned. >> he thinks this will protect him and he will claim he had known nothing about a cover up. until i told him on march 21st. he is sorting this all out until the end of the month when he decides he's just got to let everybody go. and then of course he fires me. >> on may 17th the senate held its first public hearing. one by one, the president's men were summoned to the senate chamber. under cross-examination each was asked, had the president of the united states broken the law? >> what did the president know and when did he know it? >> i don't think there's ever been a moment in american nonfiction television history that is as riveting as the watergate hearings were. >> i did not grow up with the memory of having seen it, obviously. but it was thi

named haldeman in his testimony.ed. >> i don't respect the type of journalism, the shabby journalism that is being practiced by the "washington post." i use the term shoddy journalism, shabby journalism. i've used the term character assassination. >> this was their opportunity to discredit the "post," woodward and bernstein and bury the story. >> they came after us. ziegler, the press secretary. so we knew that at that point the stakes were very high and we were the targets. >> all i know is that the story that ran this morning is incorrect -- >> we made a mistake. we [ bleep ] up. we had an intellectual understanding of the facts of the story and haldeman's role in watergate, but what was in the "washington post" was untrue. we should not have allowed that to happen. >> i was angry at myself and carl and how we got it wrong. and we thought maybe we are going to have to resign, maybe we should resign. i mean, we were kind of at the end of our rope. >> for woodward and bernstein the path to the truth had just gotten l

haldeman create a model? what was in place before that? with: i could have begun eisenhower in the book. one of the things that shocks me is nobody beat me to this book. it's extraordinary when you think about it that no one had looked at this history in quite this way before. you could go back to sherman adams, the civilian version of dwight eisenhower's army chief of staff. he was known as the abominable snowman. man. haldeman took it to another level. they were obsessed with trying to get this right. again in nixon's words, the lord high executioner. he was the guy who was the gatekeeper, he brokered information and was in charge of communications. he was the guy who executed the president's agenda. the fascinating paradoxical thing about it is haldeman who wrote the template for the water and white house chief failed in the end spectacularly to speak truth to power during watergate, which was richard nixon's downfall. host: we will take calls now for chris whipple. we will put the numbers on the bottom of the screen. you said this type

. >> had been a recipient of wiretap information and haldeman also had received some information through straun. >> i said to myself wow, everything john dean is saying to that committee, i hope they know it is true. >> the counsel was retained at that time. >> what date was that? >> that was on the 25th, as i recall. >> we absolutely believed what he was saying and the more evidence we got the more it confirmed what he was saying. >> meeting of march 21st. as i have indicated, my purpose in requesting this meeting, particularly with the president, was that i felt it necessary that i give him a full report of all the facts that i knew and explain to him what i believe to be the implications of those facts. >> we had white house logs of meetings. so when he said i met with the president on march 21st, we could look at the log and say, he certainly did. >> how do you expect us to resolve the truth in this matter when you state one story and you testified here and made yourself subject to cross-examination and the president states another story and he does not appear before this committee?

. >> we know the 18 1/2 minute gap was a conversation about watergate because it was with haldeman and the president and haldeman was a meticulous note taker and he took notes. >> the president's presidential secretary, rosemary woods, was recalled to explain how she accidentally erased 18 minutes of a haldeman conversation with the president three days after the watergate break in. >> it didn't happen by accident would have been our first suspicion. >> i was the lawyer who questioned rosemary woods about the 18 1/2 minute gap. >> are you discussing testimony tomorrow? or another reenactment? >> i don't want to comment on it. >> i'm called the mini skirted bitch. that was my name. pictures of me were always head to toe. my male colleagues are shoulder up. that's just how it was. rosemary woods represents really the majority of women at that time. you could be a nurse. you could be a teacher. you could be a secretary, or you could be a housewife. those were your choices. i was a very early professional and there we were head to head combat basically. >> ms. woods said it was a mistake.

haldeman, not sought explicitly to tie the noose around richard nixon. of course, once they were heard, they did. you've got potential problems with the campaign, you have the issue of obstruction of justice. and could have a conspiracy to obstruct justice but it's pretty clear if a case is to be made, donald trump himself is in the middle of it. and all kinds of other things, ancillary issues or issues with russian money and financing of the business that trump has to wonder what might be coming at him. >> we're out of time. but other question i want to ask you, do you remember bill clinton ever considering preemptive pardons during that period? >> i certainly never heard it, would not have imagined it. one of the counts of obstruction of justice against richard nixon was he dangled a pardon in front of the burg larz. it's nonsense to say you could pardon anybody, in the constitution. that would be a constitutional crisis. >> fascinating detail. always good to learn from you. >> little bit of trivia doesn't hurt. >>> coming up, what ivanka knew and didn

you can read about it and about how he fired haldeman and that living room with one hand shake the only thin time he's ever shg their hands and send them off ao very interesting use of the camp and very lonely sentry if you will. president bush talking on the phone in the president's office and then on the right, pulitzer prize-winning photo april of 1961 who remembers what was going on in maybe wit and maybes photo is all about? the bay of pigs created today like the introduction i find this incredibly humbled, maybe a desperate move but certainly a move that the young upstart democratic president called the old establishment military retiree general dwight david eisenhower to camp david a place he knew better than kennedy did at this point and pretty much says what did i do wrong and eisenhower says i told you so, i told you we would've planned this and how to execute it, you messed it up and this is what happened. think about this, what politician today anywhere would call on someone, one a predecessor of the opposite party and say how do you hope he. so a very humbling time i think

i have not seen what congressman gowdy and congressman haldeman have seen and have certainly not seen -- >> martha: congressman ratcliff. >> ratcliff, excuse me. and i have not seen the four-page memo on the fisa abuse is. but we have heard comments about them which are so outrageous indicating that if the public did see these things it would lose such faith, as congressman gowdy says, the premier law enforcement agency in all the world. >> martha: the fbi is now saying they've requested, they want a copy of this memo in order to evaluate the information and take appropriate steps if necessary. they are upset because they haven't gotten a look at this four-page memo, which is according to the people who have seen it, so awful that it could lead to people losing their jobs. >> and described as government behavior kgb-like. more kgb-like than what we expect the fbi to be. kgb was the soviet secret police, which they don't even have any more, at least not of that name. this is really very bad stuff. i don't know if a new independent counsel is going to be necessary, but i am curious when

. >> something that on afterwards, georgetown university law professor peter haldeman looks at ways they define the core in his book not a crime to be poor. the criminalization of poverty in america. >> was poverty an issue in terms of the war on drugs are the victims of the wind drugs? how to poverty play into that? >> what happens to the men who were left up in the collateral consequences? they're not allowed to live in public housing. 45000 laws require consequences of one kind or another. it destroys somebody's life. they went poor when they went into prison there are definitely poverty-stricken is totally connected to poverty. >> the deadline for student kim 2018 video documentary competition is round the corner. rescued students to choose the provision of the u.s. constitution and create a video illustrating was important. students are the final stretch sharing their experiences with us through twitter. this group wrapped up in an event climate change when the student is having fun while editing. our competition is open to middle and high school students grades six through 12. $100

after haldeman came up with the idea, his chief of staff says why don't you get vernon walters overt the cia, have him tell the fbi that this whole watergate break in was some sort of cia operation and lay off it. in other words, he was crushing the whole fbi investigation while using the fbi by using the cia as a cover. but this is what we're talking about here, getting the whole fbi off a case. >> i actually think this is why the interview with telephone is going to be so important because it actually doesn't really matter. you and i ccan talk about this mueller is going to come in and say did you do this? why did you do that? why did you do that? he's not going to say were you just fighting back or obstructing justice? he's not looking to trump for analysis. that's why the interview is so important. >> robert, it seems to me the question has come up and one of our producers figured out the very fact that trump was willing to say all right, i was trying to defend myself and taking these steps to defend myself. you got me. what's wrong with that. by doing that, he admitted the whol