the judge asked the leader, james mccord, where did you work? mccord went, cia. it was stunning. >> and they discovered that mccord was a security chief for the committee to re-elect the president. well, okay, folks. this was a political break-in. >> there was a notebook belonging to one of the burglars that had the name in it, h. hunt, w. house. it turned out to be howard hunt, who had worked for the cia, who had been hired at the white house really to undertake dirty tricks. >> you knew that this smoke that was billowing up from the oval office, there had to be fire there. >> it's like the dylan song, it don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. >> presidential increase secretary ron zoeggeler called it a third-rate burglary attempt and said it was nothing the president would ever be concerned with. >> richard nixon is obstructing justice from the begin. what would be known as the smoking gun was when he approves a plan to use the cia to blunt an fbi investigation into the money that the burglars had. it's clear in the conversation it's being do

the judge asked the leader, james mccord, where did you work? mccord went, cia. president. well, okay, folks. this was a political break-in. >> there was a notebook belonging to one of the burglars that had the name in it, h. hunt, w. house. it turned out to be howard hunt, who had worked for the cia, who had been hired at the white house really to undertake dirty tricks. >> you knew that this smoke that was billowing up from the oval office, there had to be fire there. >> it's like the dylan song, it don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. >> presidential increase secretary ron zoeggeler called it a third-rate burglary attempt and said it was nothing the president would ever be concerned with. >> richard nixon is obstructing justice from the begin. what would be known as the smoking gun was when he approves a plan to use the cia to blunt an fbi investigation into the money that the burglars had. it's clear in the conversation it's being done for political purposes basically to save the skin of the white house. the president says he approves it.

and -- they did. >> james mccord, wrote a letter to the judge. etter to judge sirica he said, "this thing is getting closer to the top than you think about." >> people lied on the stand, and you need to know this. >> i think we all, in the courtroom, kind of-gasped -- higher ups were responsible. >> it acknowledged that there was a cover up. so it was very significant. >> today the watergate scandal became a whole new ballgame. >> mccord implicated two nixon aides in the break in. >> i had no knowledge of the watergate at all. and i don't think i ought to say anything further. >> everybody began to realize that this wasn't just a third-rate burglary, as ron ziegler, president nixon's press officer, said. >> then you start hearing about bags of cash being delivered as hush money and i think that's what really got to the american public. >> americans have been hearing about watergate since the scandal broke last june, but most have only recently begun paying attention all in the family. >> i'm up to here with watergate. i'm drowning water gate. >> a

basically told her to go to the apartment they found these guys and tracked back to nixon and so was james mccord the cia guy but makes you wonder mccord's a great cia guy you know by it he bungled this operation the tape it was very messy you know howard hunt being involved there are so many elements to this case that it's really can't say the day that it was just the conspiracy that nixon was innocent i don't think that at all but everyone was kind of dirty and then the day of the establishment kicked in and said ok we want to get rid of the president they went too far. when there's this idea of the deep state what it. is but there are certain times when they're going to go this is too much on one person's hand we were the keep up with the pentagon the f.b.i. the cia but we don't want the president to have his own press by plumbers operating for him and not for the rest we should be stealing for everybody interesting thoughts of to. check out this interview which. you could. probably. it's pretty interesting. whoa according to leave camp the host of the award winning r.t. america show redacted

the first real break came when james mccord, the security chief for the committee to re-elect nixon, started to cooperate by writing a letter on the eve of his sentencing when he realized he could get a deal at his sentence. he wrote a letter saying there was perjury, there were higher ups involved. this was something that the judge had believed throughout the whole trial but -- and which woodward and bernstein had probed throughout the whole trial. >> he comes through on the eve of his sentencing to spill the beans that there's a larger conspiracy in the hopes of saving himself in a sentencing standpoint? >> absolutely. i'm sure that john dean saw that if he got in first with a good deal, because it's always known among the criminal defense bar, that the first in gets the best deal. >> right. >> and so i'm sure he was motivated by i really believe by his remorse of what he had done and also by the recognition if he came in first he would get a good deal as a witness. >> we don't know what the underlying facts are. it may be that the case that everyone is innocent of any conceivable

. >> james mccord, the lead burglar, had been in the cia in the security business for decades and nowurity at the nixon campaign. and we thought wait a minute, what's going on here? >> woodward and bernstein never imagined that answering that question would lead them smack into the oval office. hey allergy muddlers are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the 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®. you know new pantene.r tangles the minute you wash it? the first shampoo with active pro-v nutrient blends fueling hair 100% stronger that's instantly smoother and tangle free. because strong is beautiful. ♪ >>> on august 1st, 1972 i picked up woodward and bernstein's third article on watergate. it said that one of the watergate burglars had gotten money from the nixon campaign. what the reporters would soon discover was that nixon's re-election committee was engaging in a campaign of espionage and sabotage against the democrats. wootward and bernstein were beginning

one of the watergate burglars, james mccord, at trial, wrote a letter to the judge telling him therehave. apart from that, we aren't getting to resemble nixon-like behavior on the part of trump. >> like what? >> certainly the firing of comey as many commented a few weeks back, came to resemble the saturday night massacre when nixon's attorney general resigned rather than carry out the orders to fire that special counsel, archibald cox. the sequence was different but you had that same firing. now if mueller is fired, you'd have saturday night massacre times two. >> the president saying this is a witch hunt. >> that, too, was nixon's defense. nixon continually said he was being, you know, attacked by the democrats, the liberals, the media. they even came up with this cover story that it was the deep state. they didn't use that phrase back then but they tried to blame it on the cia and said this wasn't a white house operation. the real scandal is the cia. >> what is the next thing you're looking for? >> to see what happens first on the original crime. what we can pin trump operatives, w

what trump is really frightened of is flynn is going to turn into the james mccord of this investigation. he was the watergate burglar who got 25 years and wound up singing a very heavy tune about -- >> so that is your theory of the case? >> i'll tell you, i would investigate that a little bit more, but i'd feel comfortable going to a jury with that case and proving it beyond a reasonable doubt. >> yeah, that's a very strong case. look, you've heard lawyers all over the place say maybe it's obstruction. maybe it's not. i just think you laid out a very good case for why it is. at the minimum, it is a predicate for bob mueller to investigate obstruction and put everyone in the white house in the grand jury and ask them, what did the president say to you about why he was firing james comey? >> see, what we're talking about is what's the threshold? what i'm hearing is whether it's definitive or not, there's enough evidence here to escalate this. >> look at the pretext, the reason that they gave to fire comey in the first place. this was because of the rosenstein memo. well, trump later admit

it, and bottom line is, the president is worried that mike flynn is going to turn into the next james mccord, the watergate burglar who wound up getting a heavy sentence and then fingering the people in the white house. >> okay. >> that's concerning. >> bob, there's a lot in that statement. let's have you parse it a little from your opinion. you do not think that the president obstructed justice, but what do you make of the kme comments of senator rubio and house speaker paul ryan saying it was an unconventional president who doesn't do things the regular way and naive how government works. >> you don't have to go there. whatever the president's hopes and intimations were, he didn't issue a directive or an order to the fbi director investigation, and furthermore, the fact anybody argues replacing the fbi director amounts to obstruction of justice does not give the president credit which his office is due which is, how can you make a personnel decision in obstruction of justice? that's a ridiculous notion. no prosecutor would ever bring such a case, ever. >> rob, i'm curious, then, your thoug