of watergate. and will consider why it matters we'll consider the so what question. why debunking this myth? matters along the way we'll have some time for q&a. here are a few names that will encounter. during our class today. bob woodward and carl bernstein these are these were reporters for the washington post the lead reporters on the watergate scandal for the post. and they teamed up in 1972 and were together through the scandal in 1974. together they wrote two books about the watergate scandal. catherine graham is another name that will encounter she was the posts publisher. during the watergate period the post then was a family-owned newspaper. and she was publisher from 1969 to 1979. she backed the watergate investigation. sometimes in the face of government pressure catherine graham died in 2001 ben bradley is another name will encounter today. he was the posts executive editor at the time. that is the top newsroom official. of a newspaper ben bradley broadly oversaw the watergate coverage

gordon has been working on a watergate website. it's called watergate dot org. he's worked with the 45th and and he has been instrumental in the 50th and gordon. is there anything more you need to tell about how to get of you? well. gate dot org just go there because what happens here tonight is wonderful, but it's what we do after tonight to keep our eyes open and our voices in the public sphere about these issues because they're not going to go away with the current situation. it's something to face. yeah. okay. sorry. let me just repeat that. so what happens here tonight? it's important, but what's really important is what happens afterwards so we have to really be vigilant going forward. there's some loopholes in the constitution and in our judicial system and really it's up to the public at the end to be responsible and to have a voice so we're going to have watergate.org and we're gonna start a little nonprofit nonprofit to keep the lights on. thank you rufus. thanks for all your help. rachel and judy dash, please stand up and let us say hello to you. thei

prosecution and defense teams of watergate. jill wine-banks, a former watergate assistant special prosecutor and the new book in the -- and geoff shepard , deputy to the lead

the watergate scandal broke wide open today. the president's white house legal counsel john dean has been fired. >> nixon realized that i was going to blow up the cover-up. so he decides that he's just got to get rid of me. >> the two closest men to the president, h.r. haldeman, his chief of staff, and john ehrlichman, his chief domestic adviser have resigned. >> that became big headlines, and it was one of the pivoting points of watergate. >> 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. >> why was the president getting rid of his closest advisers? you have one or two explanations. one, the president was not in control of his own white house. or two, the president is engaged in damage control. and it would be up to congress to figure it out. . >> in any organization, the man at the top must bear the responsibility. and that your nr ought to come with newfound happiness and zero surprises. and all of us will

and is precisely what the watergate story was about. men in power who thought they were beyondaccountability . bob and carl journalism, their reporting fueled a massive senate investigation that led to 48 criminal prosecutions and richard nixon's registry resignation showing the world our democracy even the most powerful person in the land is not above thelaw . washington post are incredibly proud of the reporters who work every day to uphold this legacy and provide transparency and accountability democracy requires. it is now my pleasure to introduce you to three journalists to represent the best of the washington post, woodward and carl bernstein. >> the story started on a saturday so that means that your shop reporters like their weekends off and also you had the youngsters are generally in their saturdays and sundays that was true for this story. woodward and bernstein were too young metropolitan reporters who were working that day . that is how they got the assignment. what they did when it was something else . >> therefore, i shal

september 15th the watergate burglars were indicted so that included the five at the watergate and e.hunt and g. gordon liddy. >> the fbi did the job and felt there's seven people to seek indictments for and when the indictments to limited to only seven people richard nixon knows who he has to thank. it is john dean. >> i was called in for what was called in those days a stroking session and it is sort of a pat on the head for a job well done. just the fact in the presence of the president is the reward. i'd nevada been in a one on one with just he and alderman and myself. nixon waxed long on what he wanted to do in the second term, to use the power of the presidency to go after enemies. >> we will not use the power. we had to used it narrowly. the justice department. but things are going to change now. it is an exciting prospect. >> no line in this tape is more embarrassing than the exciting prospect line which was pure suck-up. i had no idea there were tapes. i was embarrassed at my own behavior. >> there's a tremendous similarity between nixon, dean and trump and cohen. every now a

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prosecution and defense teams of watergate. jill wine-banks, a former watergate assistant special prosecutor and the new book in the -- and geoff shepard , deputy to the lead counsel and also the other of a new book. thank you for the time. remind us where you were on this date in 1972, june 17. guest: i was in the middle of a five-year term on the nixon staff, the others lawyer on the staff. i knew everybody involved, although i didn't know people in the break-in. the break-in wasn't of particular concern. i had a full-time job working on policy issues and life moved on. it was a very busy and very happy time period couldn't have been prouder than to work on nixon's white house staff. host: wherever you? guest: i was a prosecutor at the -- where were you? guest: i was a prosecutor at the time and lived in dupont circle and write about the break-in. host: bob woodward was one of the writers. he talked in 2011 and. his from his perspective. >> we --[video clip] >> those were captured. what did you hear in the courtroom? >> this

watergate blueprint for scandal is next. have yourself a very fun and safe fourth of july. >>> the biggest white house scandal in a century broke wide open today. the president's white house legal counsel, john dean, has been fired, reportedly dean is implicated in efforts to cover up the watergate scandal. >> watergate is the largest political scandal in american history. >> five men apparently caught in the act of burglarizing and bugging democratic headquarters in washington. >> many have tried to dissect the events of watergate. i lived them. >> this room and the next contain my archives. it's magazines, newspaper articles, depositions, documents. everything relating to watergate. >> i was 31 when i went to the nixon white house to work. >> i have no intention of ever walking away from the job that the people elected me to do. >> the job forever changed the trajectory of my life. >> we're not on the road to fascism. but we're dangerously close to it. >> these are the events that are going to follow me to my grave. >> i t

>> it's not even comparable to watergate. watergate was nixon cheating with the rules of re-election, trying to get ahead of his clients by -- his competition by getting information illicitly and then covering it up when he got caught. we're talking about something very different here with an insurrection that tried to overthrow the government is 100 times more serious than watergate. and watergate resolved itself nicely. we don't know how this is going to resolve itself. that's why a witness like cipollone is so important, to come in, get facts like cassidy was able to put on the table for this committee and for the public. so this is much more serious by 100 times watergate. this could bring our government down. this could bring our form of government, our great experiment in democracy to an end if we don't resolve this properly. >> yeah. well, you would know better than anybody else. john dean, always appreciate your time, sir. thank you so much. >> thank you, phil. >>> those damaging revelations might just drive donald tr

china opening it or watergate. and through the renovation process it became we learned so much more about him. we knew it but it kind of flagged it in our minds. and so i i felt after finishing the project that i had an obligation to history to put down what i saw and put it into my words one of the unique things about my book is most people writing these memoirs do it 10 minutes after they leave the white house. i i had been out 50 years. and so i i had a sense of perspective and i was able to take and to put that apply that on what we had witnessed. so one of the main reasons was for history. another reason was i have grandchildren and i wanted my grandchildren to know what had happened to their grandfather and what happened to president nixon. alive put forth as honestly as i could what happened with me, and so it's a combination of things that led to the book being written. why this title? the title the title of the book came from my publisher. i at first thought oh, this is to ostentatious. i mean the presiden

you're still breaking stories having to do with watergate.l, and i'll tell the-- >> yes, so i'm in the office and the phone rings, and it's martha mitchell, who i know. i've interviewed her. and she actually went-- >> stephen: wife of the attorney general, under nixon, for people who don't know. >> --went and complained. went, literally, and complained about the smokestack in georgetown that was putting-- why the hell is my cell phone going off now? >> stephen: is your cell phone going off right now? >> yeah. >> stephen: answer it. >> it's martha mitchell. ( laughter ) >> stephen: who knows, maybe it's something interesting. >> maybe it's martha! martha! >> it's martha mitchell. okay, so. she calls, and she said-- and this is 1974, '75, and i mean, it's one of those calls, she said, "so, john has left me." >> actually, she said, "the son of a bitch has left me." ( laughter ) >> yes. that's right. that's right. >> stephen: john mitchell, former attorney general. >> and she said, "now, can you and mr. bernstein"-- she always called you this-- "

may suggest for the references to watergate there is a national reckoning here. watergate process is deemed to have worked with congressional hearings playing a key role along with prosecutors, following the evidence that revealed a criminal president trying to kneecap the very justice department within which they served. and that makes it pretty interesting. we want to note this tonight. take those veterans like the one i mentioned, ben venesto is speaking out. he said this attorney general must follow the fact bus decide soon and once and for all whether or not to indict trump. he does not have forever. he also has experience as another probe, the 9/11 commission. as we go into hearing coverage, he is our special guest on this big news night. welcome, sir. >> great to be here, ari. >> how much time does the attorney general have to make this decision? >> well, there is no specific time requirement, but i suggest in the piece you mentioned that he ought to be able to make a decision about whether there's enough evidence to indict donald trump in six months' time

, but why hasn't this been a more prominent feature of the watergate story? and could i find evidence of it and and more sort of aspirationally could this inspire the kind of bipartisanship that that greg jacob was talking about there were sort of lacking right now, and of course it would have implications for future vacancies. so i i contacted the birch by archives at the university of indiana and and try to reach senator by who unfortunately at that stage of his life was was not in a position to to remember that that part of his life and and had been suffering from some illnesses, but they did very nicely recommend that i speak to jay berman who i think is on this panel on the zoom today and he was a senator bias cheapest staff and he very graciously had lunch with me at the century club in new york. city and we talked about this phrase party opposite. he said, you know, it sounds like senator by and and and then i found some more information that albert didn't want to take a partisan advantage and become president and and he did not know about this plan to

in watergate, they would actually go after nixon's lower aids first. and then as chief of staff, man's top domestic adviser. i think that is probably going on right now with people like meadows, maybe giuliani, who was trump's private lawyer in this manner. and i suspect they will try to put the squeeze on those people as they try to build their case. and so, that would be the natural evolution of this. and it follows a pattern that jeffrey is very familiar with, because it's kind of standard operating procedure. >> and also takes a while. everybody is frustrated, i mean, a lot of democrats are frustrated with garland. if you look at iran contra, if you look at watergate, it took a year and a half to two years to get the big conspiracy case indicted. so, this is not on the slow boat to know where that a lot of democrats thought it was. >> it has been a year and a half. thank you, thank you both, i appreciate. we've got a lot more on january six news tonight. new details on the doj, looking at the farm presents actions in the criminal investigation. plu

25, 1973, former white house counsel john dean appears before the senate committee investigating watergatexplosive testimony about the planning for the watergate break-in, cover-up and activity undertaken by his former boss, richard nixon and his aides. >> i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency. >> reporter: dean was implicating nixon, other officials, and even himself in the watergate scandal, a crucial moment in the demise of the nixon presidency. dean later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges and served prison time. >> he's a hero because history remembers him largely for having gone and spoken the truth and helped save the democracy that was under threat during watergate. >> reporter: contrast dean with pat cipollone, cassidy hutchinson, a former aide to trump's chief of staff mark meadows, testified cipollone was in close touch with her on january 6 and desperately tried to keep the then president from going up to capitol hill with the rioters. >> mr. cipollone said something to the effect of please make sure we don't go up to t

we saw the same thing in watergate, and you have to start with nixon. he won 49 out of 50 states. he won a landslide. but support for him, which was at an all-time high, his approval rating, started to sink as soon as the hearings started and the facts started coming out. his approval rating went from their way down. >> we'll see what they will or won't be doing, because you're saying that's gonna be a thematically that could reduce energy to get people to the polls. betsy, jill, thank, you have a

jill wine-banks, who served as assistant watergate prosecutor. they are both msnbc legal analysts. and also with us, stuart

watergate blueprint for scandal is next.safe fourth of july. >>> the biggest white house scandal in a century broke wide open today. the president's white house legal counsel, john dean, has been fired, reportedly dean is implicated in efforts to cover up the watergate scandal. >> watergate is the largest political scandal in american history. >> five men apparently caught in the act of burglarizing and bugging democratic headquarters in washington. >> many have tried to dissect the events of watergate. i lived them

>> watergate was primarily, i mean the legal aspect of watergate was the obstruction of justice.re, they were , since it could've been accommodated, january 6, the attempt to undo a recognized election results by a president, that was unprecedented, and hopefully will never be repeated. >> when you look forward and you think, let's say you are 105 , six years from now, do you think that you know, is this something like the populism, the attacks on democracy, is this a phase, will we have gotten through it, or are we spiraling downward? >> well, what bothers me, even say in the vietnam period, i thought life was tough, and it was, but the critics and their majority were believers in the system. they disagreed about the policy. and they were very a passionate about it. it was not easy. but, now, the domestic dispute seems to be more about the country itself, and that is a debate that makes it very hard to move from it to a compatible vision of the future. >> henry kissinger, always a pleasure. >>> next on gps, i will interview the man who runs america's newest military branch. the

, except for wet richard nixon did, i think you and i've talked about this in watergate, was probably about a 100th of what donald trump did. nixon did some terrible things, he violated his oath, violated the constitution, but this is a guy who wanted to end our democracy, and for every sign we have, still wants to do it today. that speech he gave in d. c. yesterday, saying that if he comes back to office in 2025, there might be a sort of stalinist purge. why on earth with someone's want to say things like this? this is what is at stake. unless the justice department draws the line, and says that no president should ever have that kind of unaccountable power, this is not a job where you're allowed to abuse the military, and take power for yourself, for your selfish purposes and turn this into some kind of fascist regime. if justice doesn't draw the line now, when is it going to happen? and all of us and our children, and those children who are in our families are going to be in danger, that any future president will say, donald trump got away with it, i'm going to get away with it too

. >> -- i think it was nick akerman who said, he was involved in watergate. and so, he says that there should be a special counsel and should do it soon, before trump declares, otherwise it's gonna be seen as political. >> that would be true to, in terms of an investigation of him and -- in terms of the secret service, there's going to be -- >> one that all be part of the secret service naturally? if there's a special -- >> why don't we just get up an appointee into the secret service who's not from this gang of people who are essentially, let's be honest here, deleting their texts. if this story is not making sense to me, get someone in there who's not from the secret service, and protect the president president and vice president and all the others that they protect. >> to be clear, i'm not boring hearings with guys from think tanks telling how is fix our secret service apparatus, but the way the government works, is when you have a problem in law enforcement agency, you have to go in and fix it, and the way you fix it is by passing a law to give you a diff

stanton friedman explicitly says, eu roswell is a cosmic watergate. other researchers, like don schmidt, described the kennedy assassination as a formative experience and compare the government statements on raw as well to the warren commission report. and either case can this official document be trusted. the lip core so, who writes the really popular that day after roswell, is a firm advocate of the two oswald siri of the kennedy assassination. and goes further than that, to say that the entire cold war was really just a cover to help develop anti alien defense mechanisms. and you see this flood of roswell literature through the 80s, through the 90s. that says, yes, the government covered it up. and they didn't do it for our own good, donald kehoe was wrong. instead, it's a litany of misinformation and misdeeds. no longer is the air force this benign body trying to protect the public from national hysteria, now president truman sets up magic 12 in 1947 as a special government body to cover up the truth of ufos. presumably also in charge of those men

because, i was a kid watching the watergate hearings, and watching the moment the changed everything, which was alexander butterfield testifying under oath, on tv, and revealing that pretty much everything that richard unexcited said was on tape. pretty much all of it was tape recorded in the white house, on the telephones, at camp david, everywhere. and, alexander butterfield we, 49 years later, is going to join us here tonight. >> no way, really? >> to talk about what it is really like to be that star witness in that kind of presidential investigative hearing, in what is now the cassidy hutchinson role, and what we've seen. he was subpoenaed, just like she was subpoenaed, and it was obviously, it's a unique experience, and a unique perspective to get on what we are watching, and what we will be watching tomorrow. >> i can't believe i went all day-to-day without knowing the butterfield will be on the show tonight. how come nobody came in and rang my bell about this. >> you are supposed to know immediately about this, these are not supposed to take you by surprise, i don't know what h

exactly the time that the conversation turned to watergate. we know from the timing that january 5th and sixth were days when there would've been a lot of messages about protecting or not protecting the president and the vice president. not enough attention is being paid to what was going on with the vice president. the fact that he was possible for the secret service to whisk him away, at the direction of james murray. two words that i won't forget, i promise you. they're going to whisk him away, never to let him to return to fulfill his constitutional responsibilities to oversee the counting of the ballots. that is something that we need to know. who made that order to get out of there? was it james murray? was that the president? was it the president directly to ornado, we just don't know. the good news is, agents can be called to testify. there are witnesses to every single one of these communications. the best evidence, of course, is the text messages. the quickest and easiest way to get the information is from a compilation of text messa

will shore up some of the holes in the scheme of legislation that a january 6 possible peer after watergate, when president nixon presided there was a flurry of legislation that was put in place for example put a lot on inspector general's could they were appointed after watergate so congress can do some things. we talk about separately there is the department of justice which is under the president. it is not a part of the united states congress and of course the department of justice would have to bring a criminal charge if there were a basis for that against the former president or some of his close associates like rudy giuliani and some of these, mark meadows that were so embroiled in the crimes that were committed on january 6. host: a viewer described these hearings as a grand jury. they are trying to set the stage for the justice department to then take it over. would you agree? guest: yes and no. i like to think about the hearings as an education for the american people in light of the possibility of a grand jury indictment. that is, we have never seen a president or former presiden

of meetings with richard nixon in which he was basically orchestrating the coverup of the watergateand after he testified, republicans on the committee, other supporter of nixon claimed he was a liar. claimed he wasn't credible. and now we're seeing the same thing happen again with cassidy hutchinson. what makes cipollone so important is that he's going to be kind of like the tape that corroborated john dean. he's going to the guy to come in and basically be able to say that what cassidy hutchinson said was absolutely the truth. i mean, cipollone was the lead lawyer for donald trump in the first impeachment. in trump world, he's as good the a tape recording. >> yeah. liz cheney is now saying in public they have the power and may make more than one criminal referral. how does that all work? what were your thoughts there, nick? >> i don't think it make a difference. the evidence is out there. first of all, the department of justice has got to realize that they've got serious crimes to investigate. donald trump is up to his eyeballs in criminality here. other people around him are up t

. >> it makes the watergate break in look like the work of cub scouts. >> in a statement today the january 6th committee said pat cipollone's interview provided, quote, key points regarding donald trump's misconduct, including information demonstrating the former president's supreme dereliction of duty. >> he was aware of every major move i think donald trump was making to overthrow the 2020 election and essentially seize the presidency. >> jamie raskin said the committee is willing to hear from ally steve bannon. >> if he wants to come in, i'm certain that the committee would be very interested in hearing it. >> it's not even a contest but you still need a judge that has courage. so far we haven't found that judge. >> reporter: alex holder said no one in the former first family expressed any kpaulbility for n m iaconsh no, not at all. >> reporter: today in delaware a bike riding president biden interacted with reporters. >> my ultimate goal is to reinstate roe v. wade as a national law. that's something i've asked the folks, the medical people in the administration to look at, whether tha

worse than watergate, easy call. point that's come through that, rachel, in the hearing, and in your coverage, the defendants are presumed innocent. very low bar, for any random human accused of a crime in our system. the president is not legally presumed innocent. much higher bar, the president has an oath and a duty to protect and defend. and tonight showed not only that there was a multi-conspiracy and a coup attempt, it also showed the complete failure of that. and that has a constitutional component that's different from whether someone sends him off to jail. it is a complete and total constitutional obligation. and what we saw in some of the new footage shows, it was according to secret service, and their experts, they're not, as you said earlier, it's not punditry, it's not look bad, it's not a josh hawley running, because you can run, and run, and runaway. but you can't run away from yourself. bob marley. not just running, not just running, but because he's afraid of the people that he summoned to the capitol

i'm going to talk about the privilege issues with the former watergate prosecutor and john dean in the next hour. stay tuned for that. you focus on the idea of the you creak unique position. he's not the private attorney of donald trump. not the personal attorney of any member of the administration. he's the office of the white house counsel. and the job was to give counsel to the office, irrespective of who the office is. he has a lot to offer. but are there moments they can get to that won't include the privilege nature of conversations, as well? >> if the committee allows pat cipollone to carve out one-on-one conversations with cha donald trump, you wand to go to court and fight for those. you don't have the time to go through that litigation. there's plenty of important information that pat cipollone has. there's movements, actions, statements that he witnessed on january 6th he needs to testify about. he needs to testify about the things that cassidy hutchinson told us about. does he agree? does he corroborate them? he needs to testify about his conversations with mark meadows, wi

. >> it makes the watergate break-in look like the work of cub scouts. >>> today in delaware, a biking president biden addresses the abortion fight after another weekend of protests. >> the only thing that's going to change this is if we have a national law that reinstates roe v. wade. >>> also tonight, deadly strike. russia attacks an apartment building in ukraine, killing more civilians. >>> plus, sequoias in danger. fire crews in yosemite national park race to save the world's tallest trees as wildfire flames intensify. >>> summer surge. the virus' latest strain powers a covid comeback. >> reporter: i'm danya bacchus in los angeles where new restrictions could trigger a requirement to mask up. >>> all-star spotlight. the wnba's biggest names gather while brittney griner's detention in russia takes centre court. >>> and later, the stones still rolling after 60 years. the band this week marking the anniversary of their first performance. ♪ >> announcer: this is the cbs weekend news from new york with jericka duncan. >>> good evening and thanks for joining us on this sunday. we begin t

it was referred to at the time and a phrase that was associated with watergate as stonewalling.oing on the hunter biden laptop. that watergate story was cracked not by the white house press corps at all but by a couple of reporters working on the city desk at this "the washington post" eventually followed up by other reporters most of them outside the white house press corps. it did not do the reputation of the white house press corps any good that they seemed to be so gentle during those times. now this white house press corps, which was certainly anything but gentle during the trump years, seems by and large to have receded into its former ways and is really not pursuing the story. not insisting on answers from the white house. i don't think that its reputation will age well because of that. >> bret: this story obviously adds to a lot of problems for this administration, for this president. i want to play a soundbite from david axelrod and put up a poll. take a listen. >> there is this sense that things are kind of out-of-control and he is not in command. no one president coul

he was the president nixon's white house counsel and the star witness in the watergate hearings.n, it is so good to see you here today. >> thank you. >> everyone talks about the john dean moments and what might come and the stunning revelations that are there. let's talk about what we broke this hour in talking about the news, john, because we are learning about another conservative lawyer. not one's name we may have heard most recently, but a conservative lawyer who was pushing donald trump to engage in election interference and he mocked the idea that it be called a saturday night massacre or martial law. i wonder what you make of it, in particular? >> well, i was somewhat stunned by the story in the times this morning when i read it. in fact, i have the memo right in front of me today. i'm looking at it and pondering it. it's really very radical conservatism, the far right of the far right, and i think it's way out of line. >> well, i wonder, john, how this compares to other memos and we heard about the consequential ones up until now including things like how to have vice pre

i will say, you know, unlike perhaps in the watergate analogy, this is not the sole crucial piece ofevidence. we have a smoking tweet, if you will, in donald trump calling everybody to come and stop the steal and then proceeding knowing that his mom was armed and dangerous can't order them to hit the capitol and then trying to go with them and continuing to egg them on and the rest of that story will be told tomorrow night at our final hearing in this series of hearings. so we want all of the evidence. we are determined to get all of the evidence. but the picture is very clear at this point about what happened. this was an organized hit against american democracy in order to overturn a presidential election. juan: can you talk about the significance of the last hearing that was held? the seventh hearing of the committee on july 12 and the key testimony of oath keepers as a witness? explain to our audience the importance of the role of the oath keepers and the proud boys and what was billed to the public as a spontaneous protest. >> the suggestion had always been that thisas just a bo