Nixon's secret Watergate testimony ordered released

[alp227]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - More than 36 years later, the secret grand jury testimony of President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal was ordered released on Friday by a federal judge because of its significance in American history.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted a request by historian Stanley Kutler, who has written several books about Nixon and Watergate, and others to unseal the testimony given on June 23 and 24 in 1975.

Nixon was questioned about the political scandal during the 1970s that resulted from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington.

The scandal caused Nixon to leave office on August 9, 1974, the only resignation of a U.S. president. The scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction and imprisonment of a number of his top officials.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/us-nixon-watergate-idUSTRE76S4ZH20110729

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. 36 years.

:rofl:

[rfranklin]

2. Captain Queeg's last ramblings...

Ten pounds of strawberries...that John Dean stole them...I measured with scoops of sand....

[goforit]

3. Why???...So that we can be distracted from the other crimes of Gov't

[No Elephants]

9. Per the OP article, the most rransparent administration ever opposed release

and is reviewing the ruling to see if it will appeal it.

"The Obama administration's Justice Department had opposed releasing Nixon's testimony, citing the privacy interests of individuals named in the testimony, among other reasons."

A privacy interest of individuals named in the Watergate testimony of a President 36 years ago. You have to give credit for having the spine to actually make that claim in court. Besides, I'm guess most of the individuals named in the testimony are already known to the public. The Watergate hearnings were televised and Nixon is unlikely to have implicate anyone who had not already been named by Dean, Haldeman, Erlichmann, and so on. And most of those people already wrote at least one book on the subject.

Besides, no one is going to believe Nixon anyway (and therefore I question the judge's reasoning.)

The testimony should be released because it never should have been secret in the first place, period.

[NYC Liberal]

4. Nixon got his pardon, so it wouldn't have mattered 36 years ago

anyway.

Sigh.

[No Elephants]

10. It may have mattered to the Republican Party.

Notice, they are today calling Nixon, "the last liberal President," Nixon, the only President to have to resign over anything, much less covering up a burglary of a doctor's office in order to steal privileged information.

They are trying to disassociate themselves from what many of them see as their biggest disgrace by associating him with their biggest enemies, thereby killing two bird with one stone. They don't want his legacy around their necks. And, back then, it would have been even more damaging to the Party.

[NYC Liberal]

13. Bush did worse than Nixon. And he committed his crimes openly

and unabashedly. Nixon spied on people but covered it up. Bush spied on people and bragged about it on national television. :puke:

[Octafish]

16. This guy was there at the beginning.

His grandkids curse America today. Prescott, that is. Dick's grandkids could be nice. Not my beeswax, they're not "elected."

[gratuitous]

5. Exhibit A

This is why you prosecute Executive branch crimes. Failure to bring these criminals to justice ensures that sooner or later they'll slither back into the halls of power to corrupt the system again. It's not lookin' backwards to the past, it's justice. Granted, it doesn't involve shooting an unarmed man and then dumping the body at sea, but it's still justice.

[RainDog]

15. EXACTLY. we are establishing the precedent for a dictator, not a president

with the refusal to bring Bush and Cheney, etc. to a court of law, with Obama upholding the intrusions into private life, presidential right to execute Americans (ala lettres de cache) - people who don't care about these things b/c it's Obama now doing them are blind to the nature of power and those who seek it.

[jwirr]

6. Good. And I am looking forward to hearing what John Dean has

to say about it. I listened to the entire hearing. This will fill some holes for those of us who went through this.

[No Elephants]

11. Because you will believe Nixon's testimony?

I'm happy it's being released. It should never have been secret in the first place and I have no idea why the Obama administration fought release.

However, I don't think it will fill in diddly. As you noted, the hearings were broadcast; everyone in a position to know anything has written at least one book on the subject; and Nixon would have had no compunction about lying, anymore than he had a compunction about erasing almost 20 minutes of tape and asking his secretary to lie about it.

[msanthrope]

7. Royce Lamberth currently has Orly Taitz's latest abortion in front of him.

I think he called her stupid this week....

[BNJMN]

8. They can look through my online activity, etc, but they couldn't keep the microphones in the WH?

After all, we pay for those people to represent us.
Just promise them we'll wait 36 (or 100) years before releasing the tapes.


Why not?

[No Elephants]

12. We should not have to wait 36 years for info on what our employees are doing to, er, for us.

There was no danger to the people of the United States in that testimony. He was not testifying on how to build a nuclear bomb, or giving Doomsday codes. Ergo, the information should never have been secret to begin with.

Stuff that is merely embarrassing to an elected official should never be kept secret from voters. That's exsctly why the states insisted on the First Amendment before they agreed to ratify the Constitution: voters should know.

Remember, that turd got re-elected very handily AFTER the stories of the Watergate coverup began floating around. And then he became the first President in history to have to resign.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

14. You heard about Nixon's autobiography?

You know, the one with 18-1/2 blank pages in it???


:rofl: Yes, I'M THAT OLD........ :D

The Watergate hearings were in the summer of 1973. I had finished my first year of college.