richard nixon and the really, really, really criminal vice presidency of nixon's vice president, spiro agnew, through an odd confluence of events, in the early 1970s, the u.s. justice department kind of bumbled its way into stating for itself, putting into writing, a new rule. this is a rule that wasn't in the constitution in any way. it's an issue that had never really been seriously considered and decided one way or the other before the justice department was confronted with it urgently during the nixon administration. but thanks to this, again, sort of odd series of things happening all at once in the early '70s, the vice president, spiro agnew, maybe going to prison, the president, richard nixon, making being removed from office against his will by impeachment. thanks to those things coming together all at once in a big felonious mess because the american people, in our infinite wisdom, thought it would be a good idea to elect guys that crimy to the white house, twice, thanks to that mess around nixon and agnew, the justice department in the early 70s "h" '70s '70s, that it was the polic

they took great pains to not test it with nixon's criminal vice president spiro agnew who was running an extortion and bribery ring out of his office in the white house and got caught by federal prosecutors for doing so. with spiro agnew, federal prosecutors actually did bring federal charges against him, but they negotiated this very sensitive deal whereby agnew resigned the vice presidency immediately i mean right before seconds before he walked into the courtroom to formally face those federal charges. the importance of that is that it means, technically, they never tried to charge nixon as a sitting president nor did they ever try to charge agnew as a sitting vice president. they avoided testing that prospect with both nixon and agnew, each of them by the skin of their teeth. the rules about not charging a sitting president those rules were creative. they took shape, they were formalized and put down in print during that crisis of criminality in the white house in the early 70s. that rule wasn't really tested at that time. that rule wasn't really tested until almost 50 years down

let's not forget spiro agnew, who is vice president, when he was convicted of crimes. -- and people who have short short memories need to be reminded of this. and with that, we are going to make sure that human intelligence, those individuals, were putting themselves on the line, to give this intelligence to our agencies, our national security agencies, are safe. this former president put those people in jeopardy. and i think they understand that. they gave him apple opportunity to give this information back to the national archives, back to the places it was supposed to be. and we can see them from -- the affidavit, that he clearly did not do that. >> so, separate and apart from the idea that he may have obstructed and that he may have done something, it appears, that he shouldn't have done, that was contrary to the law, what about the damages assessment? how do we -- that's a separate thing. we need intelligence agencies to say, here is the potential damage, here are the potential spies and informants around the world who are in danger, who here are the potential people in foreign gov

richard nixon and the really, really, really criminal vice presidency of nixon's vice president, spiro agnew odd confluence of events, in the early 1970s, the u.s. justice department kind of bumbled its way into stating for itself, putting into writing, a new rule. this is a rule that wasn't in the constitution in any way.