haldeman his chief of staff and john ehrlichman, his chief domestic adviser, have resigned. te house legal counsel john dean has been fired. reportedly, dean is implicated in efforts to cover up the watergate scandal, and he may implicate ehrlichman and haldeman. >> good evening. i want to talk to you tonight from my heart on a subject of deep concern to every american. today, in one of the most difficult decisions of my presidency, i accepted the resignations of two of my closest associates in the white house, bob haldeman, john ehrlichman. >> he thought, by throwing out his inner circle, he would be left alone. he was throwing these people under the bus so the bus wouldn't hit him. >> justice will be pursued fairly, fully, and impartially no matter who's involved. >> richard nixon wants to control everything. but he's extraordinarily delusional. i mean, he really doesn't seem to understand that he's digging himself deeper and deeper into the crime when he's trying to dig himself out. >> we must maintain the integrity of the white house, and that integrity must be real, not

when john dean came clean, it wasn't halderman, chief of staff in the white house or john ehrlichman,te house policy advisor, the two people closest to president nixon, out of side, and the president's in sight and the speculation today in washington is what will president trump do? will as the walls apparently seem to close in on him, will he fire robert mueller? lindsey graham urged him not to do it, warned him not to do it. what will the republicans do? paul ryan praised him, the speaker of the house, recently as a president as strong as any president sense ronald reagan. it's serious, us the real, it's genuine. and bob mueller is not playing games. he's not a partisan. he was appointed by president george w. bush at the f.b.i., and, you know, he's a guy who's way above any kind of cheap party politics. >> woodruff: michael, does it inexorably lead to the president? >> it leads to a basic question, why has everyone who touched this issue lied, lied to the f.b.i., lied to the american public? you know, if they were just having normal contacts with another power, that's what transiti

this went to john ehrlichman, underneath that proposal were two lines disapproved of the line.e e for approve. and under your assurance it is not traceable. >> the fbi came one day and said, i'm afraid we have a subpoena for you to testify at the grand jury. my father was upset. you're the one who got him into this, and, of course, he's going to just tell the truth. >> my personal involvement in the whole thing, the people i knew about, and the copying of the pentagon papers, that became the focus of the questioning. >> to begin with, i had urged him to do it. >> the attorney general's office made the promise to collaborate with him, by testifying in secret before a grand jury. for me, that is no choice. >> he was immediately put in custody for contempt of court. he offended the prosecutorial team by refusing to cooperate in anyway with the grand jury. if tony had testified he would have been out scott free. >> the first thing that came to my mind was you should not cooperate with evil. >> the pentagon papers drama changed abruptly as the documents arrived at the senate. >> i t