and william ruckelshaus, one of the central characters from that night, joins us now. k you very much for being with us, bill ruckelshaus. 44 years ago, this happened. how fresh is it in your memory? >> well, it'll be there as long as i'm around. it certainly became a very important part of my life. it affected it directly the next several months. but it's never left my consciousness. >> woodruff: were you worried at the time that president nixon would get away with what he was trying to do? >> not really. i didn't think at the time that the american people would tolerate firing a man who is essentially hired by the senate and by the justice department to investigate crimes that they expected were committed by the president. >> woodruff: how similar, and you've written about this recently, how similar and how different are what happened back then to what's going on right now with the trump presidency and the russia investigation? >> well, one difference is in the nature of the people involved. these two presidents are clearly not the same kind of person. there was also

stone: elliott richardson and william ruckelshaus both refused to comply with president nixon's order that he fire special press curator archibald -- special prosecutor archibald cox. and they of course took the choice of resigning and rather than simply disobeying and waiting to be fired, which of course they would have been. neil as i mentioned is representing the state of hawaii in this case, in the supreme court. why don't you talk about your experience in the case, and what's happening and what's going to happen and all that cool stuff. mr. katyal: ok, sure, i just want to situate sally's remarks within the role of the justice department. when you're the solicitor general or sometimes the attorney general you have two , kinds of traditions that are not about zealously advocating for winning cases but just to do justice. those two traditions are being willing to -- every solicitor general, i did this and my democratic and republican predecessors did. they go to the supreme court and say, supreme court, the case that we won, we should have case,so please grant this here it, and rul