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In our Richard Nixon and Watergate, 1974 Through the Fire , season 7 finale, all the plotting and planning bares fruit as the Special Prosecutor's get both their indictments and they are able to assist their favorite Judge John J. Sirica into maneuvering himself in as the presiding Judge for most of the big cases on Watergate. 

He, in turn, helps the Special Prosecutors, in a series of ex parte meetings, maneuver sealed Grand Jury evidence over to the House Judiciary Committee in order to insure what the congressman see as they move forward with a look at impeaching the duly elected President of the United States.  It is all here in plain sight, you just had to wait nearly  a half century to have the documents in hand to know what you were looking for rather than flying blind. 

Here you will hear the plan executed flawlessly, structured in a way preventing the President's defense team from ever knowing exactly what the crime was  he was actually accused of committing  and its all covered by a very compliant national press corp, in the form of CBS News. 

All of this is happening while off camera, as we have discussed and shown you,  Henry Ruth, the second in command at the WSPF, is busy with secret dinners at his home,  and also extending special invitations  to his old friend,  John Doar, to hop on over to the office after hours  to get a look at all their secret evidence for himself. While also allegedly coming up with a plan to get his hands on it all, and  keep his staff, and the Congressmen on his committee from ever seeing anything other than what the Special Prosecutor's want them to see. 

 And that is what we will be sharing with you in our final season of Richard Nixon and Watergate. 

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This is our fifth in our series of shows based on the tapes. This one is a taped conversation between President Richard Nixon and one of his top political advisors Harry Dent Sr, of my home state of South Carolina. Mr. Dent is revered here in my state for all the work he did to build the Republican Party of South Carolina. While I did not know Mr. Dent I did meet him many years ago. 

This episode showcases a call on Election eve in which the President and Mr. Dent have a candid call analyzing the election returns, and the congressional situation that the President will be facing in his second term.  It is a fascinating call as they go race by race, and state by state across the country. You will hear a lot of things but none of it will involve racist strategy. 

Harry Dent has often been unfairly tagged as a master mind of the Southern Strategy, supposedly used by Richard Nixon to grab up the "racist Southern white vote" . It is an unfair accusation and in my opinion little more than a smear against both men.

 In fact, what little truth there is to the infamous Southern Strategy can be tied to another Republican. That Republican has become the darling of the Washington press corp and D.C. elite. Somehow this group of elitist have tried to collectively erase his role in it all  and place the blame on Richard Nixon. 

Who was that man? It was Barry Goldwater, the 1964 nominee for President, who turned on Nixon during Watergate, ingratiating himself to a generation of liberals who had mocked him as crazy just a decade before..  If Nixon was guilty of anything at all; it was in holding the coalition, built in 1964's debacle, together with his own independent coalition in order to barely win in 1968. 

This episode will go through the facts of the South's conversion to the Republican Party, Richard Nixon/s real role in it, and Barry Goldwater's role as well. Then we listen in on a call that , if you are a political junkie like me, you will listen to with total fascination. From a man, Harry Dent Sr, who later pled guilty to breaking a campaign finance law . 

To his dying day , Mr. Dent claimed he only pled guilty because it was crystal clear to all that there would be no fair trials for any Watergate defendants. As we are seeing with the newly released evidence exposed by Geoff Shepard's lawsuit ,  more and more , Harry Dent Sr was right. 
 

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The House Judiciary Committee is about to take center stage. In February 1974, the House votes to start the inquiry on Impeachment in ernest. They assign the task to the House Judiciary Committee under its new Chairman Peter Rodino, a little known New Jersey Democrat from Jersey City. He had assumed the position out of seniority after Elizabeth Holtzman's upset victory had unseated Chairman Emanuel Celler, who had served 50 years in the House and was a friend and supporter of President Nixon.

Most of the committee was made up of lesser known political figures, some at the very start of their political careers like Holtzman and Mississippi Republican Congressman Trent Lott.  They would be assigned the enormous and volatile task of investigating the President of the United States for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. The spotlight would fall to them. Would they be fair? Would they be bi-partisan? Could they meet the test? 

Here we examine the committee and their efforts to staff up to look at the evidence. We will also look at a major decision made by the lead staff person they hired, John Doar. Mr. Doar was himself a former Justice Department lawyer who had been heavily involved in civil rights work. He had lived in New York City at an early point in his career and then worked in the South. At several points along the way he had become friends  and maintained a friendship with Henry Ruth, now serving as the number 2 man in the Special Prosecutor's Office.

In this episode you will hear from Henry Ruth himself at just how close that relationship was and how it played to the advantage of his staff and their efforts to get all the evidence they had over to the House Committee, all while circumventing all the due process procedures that normally protect a defendant in any criminal proceeding. In this case, against a President of the United States of America, you will see every effort made that could be, to render the leader of the free world defenseless before an unsuspecting committee of lesser known political figures.


*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

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An energy crisis, inflation crisis, problems in the Middle East & with Russia and a growing scandal. Sounds like headlines from today doesn't it?

Over the years there have been countless stories of the out of control Nixon. That as the pressure mounted President Nixon was not in control of his mental faculties nor his Administration. One such fanciful claim has been repeated about Richard Nixon's decision making during the Yom Kippur War, a full 5 months prior to the events in this episode.

However, the documentation backs none of that up and while we don't have the tapes after July 1973, most of the eye witness accounts don't back those rumors up either.  While Richard Nixon may have had issues in the very final week before the resignation, no evidence exists of any of it in the time before. All the stories of his abuse of alcohol are not sustained by any real listening of the tapes. Most of the examples of it come from phone calls on one, count them, one night, when he called people after announcing the firing of his closest aids.  given the circumstances, I am willing to spot him that one, given the miserable situation he faced.

So I thought I would provide you with proof that President Nixon possessed an amazing grasp of the issues he faced even during the highest of stressful moments, none more so than as events were unfolding in late February 1974.  Richard Nixon was well aware that the Special Prosecutor's Office were on the verge of delivering indictments of several of his closest former aids. That there were even rumors that he would be named a co-conspirator and possibly in open court. (which did not happen on March 1)

It is with this background that I present to you this special edition. It is a press conference President Richard Nixon held on February 25, 1974, at the height of Watergate. In it he answers questions for over a half hour on a wide variety of subjects, not just  Watergate. He cracks a joke or two, he answers all questions, dodging none, and put on  an extraordinary performance that I doubt could be matched by any political figure even today.

Here is the real Richard Nixon, on full display, the brilliant Richard Nixon, the open Richard Nixon, and the Richard Nixon that can rightfully claim his place among the greatest political figures in our national history.

*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

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Arguably, the most famous story of Watergate, save Richard Nixon's resignation itself, is that of the famous Washington Post secret source, My Friend, Mr. X, or better known thanks to the movie and book "All the President's Men" as Deep Throat. He turned out to be the number 2 man at the FBI, W. Mark Felt.  Felt denied it for decades even though he was among the list of suspects and he only came forward due to his family pushing him for what appears to be a payday long after Felt himself was capable of making the decision on his own.

But the decision of Mark Felt and his family to step forward also flushed out another man, also in his advanced years, near death due to pancreatic cancer, who had paid a horrible price for a role in Watergate that he had not asked for, nor deserved to have played.  L. Patrick Gray was the Acting Director of the FBI following the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover had led the Bureau for nearly a half century and as his health began to fade a power struggle for who would replace him had emerged. When Hoover died, just a month before the break in, Richard Nixon seized the moment to reign in the Bureau that under Hoover had become a power source for its director.

It was in making that play that Nixon turned to Pat Gray so that a new leader, without a dog in the fight for control of the Bureau, could take control and clean house. Gray however soon found himself not only dealing with  intrigue within the FBI but intrigue outside of it as well.  He was barely on the job a month before he was mislead by the White House Counsel to the President and was being spied on and undermined by his number 2 man at the Bureau.

In this episode we look at both men and how their stories are intertwined, and also how aggrandizing one man's role in Watergate led to the destruction of the other man. Gray has seen his name sullied as an untrustworthy pawn of the White House, who destroyed important Watergate investigation files by throwing them in the Potomac River.

In reality, Gray was an honest man whose only real crime was in believing in the people around him. He was mislead into destroying documents that were found in Howard Hunt's safe, but the materials were both not related to Watergate , and while forged,  had content  in them that was actually true.  All of this cost Gray his chance to be the Director of the FBI, a job he had done well, and wanted to continue serve in.  It was certainly a high price for him to pay. 

L. Patrick Gray was, in the end,  the truly innocent man of Watergate. In this episode we look at both the story of Mark Felt and Patrick Gray. 

*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

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"A small Justice Department unit of lawyers and investigators, informally known as the "Get-Hoffa Squad," was assembled to uncover and prosecute any unlawful activity within organized labor.'....
Yet Robert Kennedy's campaign against union corruption, and Hoffa in particular, raised questions about the role of an attorney general in prosecuting crimes. The constant investigations resembled a vendetta to those who suspected Kennedy's motives. Some thought the Attorney General was dogging Hoffa out of personal spite. Others questioned the ethics of the nation's chief law enforcement officer aggressively investigating an individual before evidence of wrongdoing presented itself."  ---  Law Library - American Law and Legal Information
Read more: Law Library - American Law and Legal Information - JRank Articles https://law.jrank.org/#ixzz7e7ijWCVX

This was the type of Justice practiced by the Kennedy - Johnson Justice Department under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy.  They felt Jimmy Hoffa was likely a criminal and they intended to prove it and put him in jail.  Perhaps with an enormous amount of justification in that belief but the method developed certainly bordered on harassment.  They decided that Hoffa was their target and they would keep on investigating him, from every angle, even when no real evidence of a crime was present, until they found something to hang their hat on. 

So What? You may be asking.

An extraordinary number of people involved in the "Get Hoffa Squad" and the Kennedy - Johnson Justice Department, who had been relieved of their duties when Richard Nixon was elected to the Presidency in 1968, would be chosen to serve as members of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office or in other strategic positions in the legal fights that made up the Watergate Scandal. This show examines this fact and puts together how important this set of facts is to the overall outcome of the Watergate Scandal.
 
By the time this simple , third rate burglary, and campaign screw up case had run its course the prosecutors were investigating every possible angle they could think of on Richard Nixon personally, and on his administration.  They investigated potential Presidential candidates, Vice Presidential candidates, staffers, contributors, friends of Richard Nixon,  at the rate of secret files being discovered it would not even surprise me if an investigation of Vicky, Pasha, and King Timahoe won't someday surface. (the President's dogs) 

This story looks into the overwhelming use of the unlimited powers of the Special Prosecutor's Office, an office we soon hear described by House Judiciary staffer and future aid to Bill Clinton, Bernard Nussbaum as "A dangerous, dangerous office" 

*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

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American Bar Association Rulebook defines the rules on ex parte meetings

(A) A judge shall not initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to the judge outside the presence of the parties or their lawyers, concerning a pending* or impending matter,* except as follows:

(1) When circumstances require it, ex parte communication for scheduling, administrative, or emergency purposes, which does not address substantive matters, is permitted, provided:

(a) the judge reasonably believes that no party will gain a procedural, substantive, or tactical advantage as a result of the ex parte communication; and

(b) the judge makes provision promptly to notify all other parties of the substance of the ex parte communication, and gives the parties an opportunity to respond."

In what can only be described as absolutely stunning, ex parte meetings between the Special Prosecutor's Office and Judge John Sirica did not just happen once or twice, they occurred so often there are actual memos where staffers are asking for a couple in what appears to be almost routine practice. 

This is more than just frowned upon in the law, if it had been known at the time a number of these people, including the vaunted Judge Sirica, would no longer have been practicing law after it made the news.  It so frowned upon you actually have to wonder if the record of these meetings was intentionally sealed and hidden from public view in the hopes that it would never see the light of day. But, thankfully, it has now seen the light of day sadly four decades to late. 

Geoff Shepard, one of the Nixon Defense team lawyers, sued the National Archives to get access to these records and a court agreed with him and released it all in 2013.  It is the equivalent of more than just a bombshell, but more like a guided nuclear missile, to the credibility of any of the convictions in any case in the Watergate Scandal. None of these defendants received a fair trial, in my opinion, when you examine a record of almost routine secret meetings between prosecutors and the Judge who was supposed to be impartially sitting in judgement in their cases. Even the ACLU stepped up and sided with former Attorney General John Mitchell to no avail at the time of his trial. 

To make matters even worse there is more than just little bit of hearsay evidence that prosecutors had met with Judge David L. Brazelon of the Appellate Court to insure that Judge Sirica, often seen as one of the worst Judges on the entire Federal Bench , would never be overturned on Appeal. It is just staggering that all of this could happen in a case that would eventually lead up to a sitting President of the United States. 

Yes, there is corruption everywhere you look , ironically, none of it is coming from the place most of the historical record has claimed it came from. You see for a half century it seems that when it comes to the Watergate Scandal,  that the narrative was in place, and the FIX was in, and there was no interest from anyone in real justice as long as Richard Nixon could be brought to his knees. 

*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

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On this day when the world says farewell to Queen Elizabeth 2nd, we thought we would pay tribute to her in a uniquely focused way. We will look back fondly on her relationship with the United States of America. 

Queen Elizabeth has been the one constant in an ever changing world. Through all of that change, and 14 American Presidents, Queen Elizabeth has reigned with desire to maintain a good relationship with the United States. In so doing, she became as beloved in America as she was in her own country and commonwealth.  , even though America is a country that 200 plus  years before had a revolution to get away from a Monarchy. The Founding Fathers would probably be shocked.  

So today, as she is laid to rest, we honor her with a look back at how often she took the time to honor us in the United States, from visits, and meetings with our Presidents, to remembering our nation at its lowest moment, to even one of the funniest stories about the Queen and two hapless American tourists that will leave you laughing. 

God Save the Queen!! 

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This is our fourth episode looking back on the calls and meetings of April and May of 1973. It is the heart of the Prosecution case against our 37th President.  When you listen to these calls , in there entirety, not just snippets, or fragments but all of them. You cannot help but come away realizing just how weak the case against the President and his upper staff really was.

It was a case totally dependent on the testimony and words of one man, John Dean, the White House Counsel. All trails, all stories, and all actions, seem to lead right back to him.

In these meetings, and calls, we listen in as John Ehrlichman briefs the President on the status of the case and it appears he is finally piecing together the situation John Dean has created for them all. That instead of protecting the President and being honest with him , Dean has been blocking for John Mitchell and it appears getting all of them deeper into a hole. A hole only John Dean found an escape route out of as the month of May 1973 comes to an end.

We also listen in as Attorney General Richard Kleindienst informs the President about L. Patrick Gray destroying files based on the advice of John Dean. It is the results of advice we heard in our last episode where John Ehrlichman, so often vilified by the media, liberal historians, and the special prosecutors,  actually made it a point to advise his collogue to tell the truth and not get dragged into the mess engulfing the White House at the time.  That advise probably saved Gray an indictment.

Then we listen as President Nixon talks with his new Chief of Staff and his Assistant Chief of Staff in calls that have also been questioned over wiretaps and the investigation of Watergate,

 Then after we listen to all of this material we will return to 1974 in our next episode as the Special Prosecutor's prepare to indict the Watergate Cover up Defendants and move Grand Jury information over to one of their leaders, Special Prosecutor's second in command Henry Ruth's " old across the fence" neighbor John Doar, who was in charge of the House Judiciary Committee staff.

*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

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In our third special tapes series episode we look at various meetings and calls between the President and his staff.  Some of these tapes have been spun to make the President look as bad as possible by liberal historians, Special Prosecutors, and liberal media personalities. However, when you listen to these tapes in there entirety  I would argue they paint an entirely different picture for anyone listening with an open mind.

So we are sharing these conversations as we did the two earlier meetings in there entirety, or as close to that as we could put together.

They include a meeting with Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, phone calls with Domestic Policy Advisor John Ehrlichman,  White House Counsel John Dean and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

We listen as John Ehrlichman reaches out to L. Patrick Gray to warn him of John Dean's duplicity. Ehrlichman who has been often vilified for years, also makes a second call to Gray to urge him to just tell the truth on the secret files Gray had destroyed based on the advice given to him by John Dean, the White House Counsel. ( A case we will look at in-depth in a later episode) This single act of kindness toward L. Patrick Gray most likely saved Gray from being indicted. Gray followed the advice Ehrlichman gave him as we will see later.

However, it is three calls with Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen that are of the most interest in these calls. Henry Petersen was investigated for his role in the early investigation of the Watergate Scandal because he had kept the President up to date on what the status was of the investigation.  Everything that could be done by Prosecutors was done to paint this situation as sinister,   as Nixon guiding the investigation away from the targets for a suspicious public.  But listen to these three calls yourself and make up your own mind as to what President Nixon was doing in them.

He is clear, he gives direct orders as to what he wants to happen, and he instructs the most important of all the witnesses in the case, G. Gordon Liddy, to talk. It is in these calls you walk away realizing that for 5 decades you may not have been told anything close to the truth.

You cannot listen to them and come away believing anything other than Richard Nixon was as determined as anyone else in America to know what the truth was in the scandal of Watergate.

*** For more information please go to the following website ShepardonWatergate,com

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If you love the show, the easiest way to show your support is by leaving us a positive rating with a review. You can also tell your family and friends about " Randal Wallace Presents : Nixon and Watergate " too

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