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On March 15, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vice President J.D. vance, as well as other national security leaders jumped into a signal group chat to discuss war plans of the US to bomb the capital of Yemen. In an utterly shocking breach of national security and a display of incompetence that can only be found in the massively unqualified. They added Atlantic editor Jeff Goldberg into this group chat, who said nothing until the news of the bombing was released. The administration then demonstrated classic gaslighting, first saying that this didn't happen, it wasn't real, and then after Jeff Goldberg Goldberg published the text saying, well, it's not really a security threat, because instead of admitting that they made a mistake, they just create alternate realities. The same exact folks screaming to the Himalayas about Hillary's emails are now doing Olympic level gymnastics to bend the truth as to why this fuck up isn't a big deal. It's shocking, and it's not shocking all at once. With good reason. The vast majority of Americans do not trust the government. The United States has done a masterful job of recreating our history, doing wildly shameful and often evil things in the background while conveniently erasing it from history. Trump signed an executive order said restoring truth insanity to the American history. Now, allow me to translate that. In white Christian nationalist fundamentalist speak, it means that the Pilgrims were kind and generous. We never hurt or abused natives. Slavery wasn't really that bad. Jim Crow wasn't real, civil rights wasn't totally necessary. And I mean, Dr. Martin Luther King had affairs. Feminism destroyed America and women need to stop overreacting and participate in the free labor we demand from them and stop acting like they should be treated equally. Also, white men are the handsomest, most awesome and most perfect because God and the Bible said so. It's really an executive order to recreate and erase history that is uncomfortable. But when did America stop making progress? What set us on this trajectory in the first place? Between 1948 and 1973, America had the most successful economy the world had ever seen, as in all of human history. And it's been going backwards since 1973. Since that year, quality of life has decreased, illness has increased, cost of living has increased without comparable increase in wages. And in the last year, life expectancy has now also started to decrease. At the end of Eisenhower's presidency, 85% of Americans trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time. As of last year, 22% nationally had that trust. And the biggest catastrophic drop off in that trust revolves around a single person Richard Tricky Dick Nixon. Today we're going to use some un whitewashed history to discuss the life and career of Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War and the role in pushing America backwards, the slide into conspiracy theories and lack of trust, and of course how racism plays a foundational role. All of this is critical to what is happening now and why the fallout or the lack thereof is non existent compared to the Watergate scandal. All of this and more on today's episode of Flipping Tables. Hello and welcome back to Flipping Tables. I'm very glad to be here. I hope that you enjoyed the last week's conversation with Jane Elliott as much as I did. I'm going to be mixing things up a bit more. I've gotten some emails and requests for a bit more history and real stories mixed in with the interviews. I'm happy to oblige. Those are my favorite things. Thank you to all the new followers and supporters. Please continue to rate and review the show. It helps me so much. Patreon User get an update on new merchandise next week. I'm super excited about some new, very fun T shirts and hats that are coming out and then the first week of May that merch will be released to everyone. As I'm recording this, I'm getting ready to head up to D.C. this weekend for the protests. I have a meeting with Marianne Williamson and I will also be participating in the Summit for Religious Freedom, which I'll talk about a little bit later in this episode. April is a tough month for me, but I'm here to do the work and hopefully things will ease up a little bit in May. But first we're going to dive in. So since the rise of Donald Trump, distrust in the media, science education has skyrocketed. But that's not the first time we've seen this type of climate change in the past within the American community. But it's important to understand the foundation of movements and changes that led to Nixon and the Watergate scandal in the first place, and why we have continued to go backwards since 1973. In 1932, the United States faced a critical question. How do we survive the Great Depression? It had never happened before. Conservatives of the time believed that capitalism in its purest form was perfect and it needed no altering. Don't touch it. Leave it alone. In fact, they believed that the hand that was running the economy was the hand of God. And this before. This was before the platforms would switch. So conservatives would have been the Democrats and the more liberal party would have been the Republicans. They believed that capitalism was perfect, while proof that it was not was standing right in front of them. The liberals at the time believed that intervention in the economy kind of messing it around and massaging it a little bit would stimulate the economy and was good for the economy. But both parties supported capitalism wholeheartedly. Then in 1932, the economy tanks. There's no end in sight. In fact, it's getting worse. This actually was unironically at the end of what is referenced as the Gilded Age. That's getting nodded to by many MAGA talking heads. America's going back to the Gilded Age. Well, at the end of the Gilded Age was the Great Depression, so maybe we shouldn't do that. President Roosevelt was able to convince liberals to act immediately. Not because of the suffering of the people, though that was part of it. They didn't know if the intervention would help correct it. They knew it would help ease suffering. But FDR was able to inspire intervention by saying, if we don't act now, America is going to have a socialist revolution. And both liberals and conservatives were totally dedicated to the institution of capitalism. Prior to the 1930s, the Communist Party as well as social interest had been gaining a following in the United States and the US was headed towards socialism. With the advent of the Great Depression, the liberals won out and they hired people like James Maynard Keynes, a socialist economist, to come in and stir the economy in hopes of stimulating it and prevent the US from going into socialism. The goal was to introduce just enough socialist programming to mollify the masses and prevent an uprising. It's not unlike using a vaccine. I'm going to give you a little bit of the disease that I don't want you to be overrun by. One of the big ones was Social Security. And it was named Social Security on purpose. They could have called it anything. Old age security, retirement benefits. It was called that on purpose to lead citizens to believe that the system was in change, was changing, when in fact it really wasn't. Then they implemented the FDIC banking regulations and created not totally necessary jobs to give people paid work and stimulate the economy. There was an unintended side effect to these changes. Combined with the effects of World War II, we ended up with the strongest economy that human history has ever seen. From 1948 to 1973, you could work a regular job and get rich. That was the norm. That was never possible before or after this time frame. You could work a job and support a family. You could work a job and buy a house. Prior to this economy, the only way to get wealthy was to Be born into it, marry into it, or some kind of lottery or groundbreaking invention. They invented a place called Bell Labs where they would hire people to come in, brainstorm problems, and then if you felt like it, brainstorm solutions to the problems, come in into a think tank of how do we make the world better? How do we solve problems? That was a paid job. So why did we stop? We were killing it. Because due to this massive economic surplus, by the way, the wealthy at this time paid an average tax rate of 50.6%, if you include deductions. They were paying their share. So that was also part of stimulating the economy. But due to this surplus in the economy, people who were considered outsiders or other decided they also wanted to benefit. And they wanted civil rights. They wanted equality in this booming economy. Always comes down to racism in a way, doesn't it? It's power and money. And this revolutionary moment caused actual change, especially for African Americans. We didn't become perfect, obviously. We're still a fully racist nation with segregation, and it's fully on display, especially right now. But the Civil Rights act was real change. The Voting Rights act was real change, and it was transformative steps towards equality. The Civil Rights act of 1964 upset a lot of white Americans. And this is where the party shifted. Remember that prior to this, the conservatives were the Democrats. And here we see the shift. The Republican Party candidate of the presidential race in 1964 was a man named Barry Goldwater, who ran on the promise of if you elect me, I will destroy the Civil Rights act that had been signed into law by his opponent, who was running for re election, Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ won in one of the largest landslide victories in presidential election history. But Goldwater, simply on the promise that I will remove the Civil Rights act, won five states. His home state of Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Six states. States that were fanatically Democratic voted for this Republican because they so deeply wanted the Civil Rights act to disappear. Four years later, in 1968, Nixon was running versus Humphrey. And there was also a Dixiecrat candidate named George Carla Wallace, who was the governor of Alabama. He makes a huge impact on this election by also getting five states. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas. Now, the difference between a Democrat and a Dixiecrat was that the Dixiecrat wasn't going to label himself a Republican. Most of the Southern states were still very loyal to the Democratic Party, but he was also going to oppose the Civil Rights act that Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson had signed into law. Loyal Democrats voted for Nixon. He lost several states to this Dixiecrat, and he it allowed for Nixon to win by the smallest of margins over Humphrey. And this is really when the Deep south turned Republican. The Democrats became the liberal party and third party really started to make waves in determining close elections. Despite the party platform switch we see here, Republicans were, and for all of their history, have been the party of the ultra wealthy. The Republican Party originated in the union Union, which was where all the factories were, all the industrialists. They have always been the party of big money. And that's also been a major part of the shift the Republicans have always stood for. How do we keep the rich rich? How do we make policies to keep money in their pockets and give more money to them? And the racist Southern states knew that even though Nixon was a Republican and those states had been Democratic for decades, they knew he would pursue conservative policies for the wealthy. And they wanted the advancement of civil rights to stop, even if it cost them, as poor white Southerners, prosperity. They were so committed to cutting black people out that even if, as poor whites, they would be hurt by these policies. And they were and still are. They still wanted those policies in their narrow minds. It was, if this Black family has $10, that means that my family doesn't have it. Not that. There was more than enough for everyone, which the economy had proven. There was enough for everyone to thrive. There was enough for everyone to go to school, for everyone to have a home, to everyone to raise a family if they wanted to. And Nixon successfully ended the liberal economic boom. And since 1973, the standard of living, cost of living, has gone backwards. And now life expectancy has to. Every measure of a booming economy is going backwards. In 1973, the top 1% of the US took away 8% of the economy. Now they walk away with 40% of the economy. What we are seeing on a grand scale with Trump is a direct result of that narrow margin win of Nixon over Humphrey. It's exacerbated by Ronald Reagan and now entering critical mass with Trump. So let's talk about the man who stopped the greatest economic boom in world history. Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, was born on January 9, 1913, in a modest home in Yorba Linda, California. His beginnings were humble, framed by hardship, religion, and an ethos for perseverance and hard work. The second of five sons born to Francis Anthony Nixon and Hannah Milhouse Nixon, Richard grew up under a stern moral guidance of his devout Quaker mother and the practical, often severe discipline of his father. Nixon's early life was shaped profoundly by the socioeconomic conditions of the time. They operated a small grocery store and a gas station, making a solid living. But his early years were formed by financial hardship before entering the Great Depression. The formative experiences instilled Nixon a strong sense of duty, frugality and resilience. His mother, Hannah played especially formative role in his moral and emotional development. She was deeply religious and often impressed upon Richard the values of hard work, honesty and sacrifice. Nixon would later say about her, she was a saint. She never raised her voice. She never punished us. But we lived in fear of her disapproval. Despite the family's economic struggles in his early life, Nixon excelled academically. He was an avid reader with an early interest in law and history. He attended Fullerton High School and later transferred to Whittier High School. Nixon's high school years were marked by a quiet intensity and a persistent underdog spirit. He always felt like he was fighting from the bottom. Denied entry into the elite student society, the Franklins at Whittier College, due to his humble background, Nixon responded by founding a rival group called the Orthogonians, which is. I feel like he could have gone with a catchier name there, but it's fine. Composed of students who worked hard and didn't come from privilege, this episode foreshadowed one of the central themes of his career. His identified his identification with the forgotten American, the hard citizen, the middle class against the elite. And he once said, I have never pretended to be anything but what I am. A middle class man from a small town. After graduating from Whittier College in 1934, Nixon attended Duke University School of Law on a scholarship. His time at Duke further underscored his resilience and his ambition. He graduated near the top of his class and returned to Whittier to practice law. However, his early legal career lacked fulfillment and by 1942, Nixon found a new sense of purpose by joining the Navy. During World War II, though he never saw combat, Nixon served the Pacific theater and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. His military service added to his credentials and broadened his understanding of leadership and international affairs. Nixon's entry into politics came in 1946, in the aftermath of World War II. Encouraged by a group of California Republicans looking to challenge incumbent Democrat Jerry voorhees in California's 12th congressional district, Nixon ran a savvy and aggressive campaign. He used innovative radio spots and direct mail campaigns that emphasized anti commun. This is the beginning of the Cold War. We also going to get into Joseph McCarthy soon. So using this anti communist rhetoric was extremely Powerful. Nixon portrayed Voorhees as sympathetic to leftist organizations. And Nixon's message was clear. America needed to be vigilant in the early days of the Cold War and that the danger Communism poses is not just abroad, but in our own backyard. Calling someone a Commie as a way to undermine them politically is a very old tactic that dates back to the 1940s. This campaign marked the beginning of Nixon's reputation as a fierce political tactician. He won the election and quickly made a name for himself in Congress as a staunch anti communist. He became a member of the House UN American Activities Committee, where he played a pivotal role in the investigation of Alger Hiss, a former State Department official accused of being a Soviet spy. Nixon's dodged pursuit of Hiss earned him national recognition. Though controversial, the case established Nixon's image as a champion of American security and a determined adversary of Communism. I do not intend to stand by and watch treason develop in this country, nixon declared during the investigation. In 1950, Nixon ran for the US Senate against Helen Douglas. The campaign was brutal and it was very personal. Nixon's team distributed pink flyers suggesting that Douglas's liberal record was akin to communism, earning him the nickname Tricky Dick from his critics. While these tactics were divisive, they were extremely effective also. Like extra points on the pink paper against a woman. Yeah. Nixon won the Senate seat and solidified his reputation as a relentless campaigner. By 1952, Nixon's rise in national politics reached new heights when he was tapped by General D. Dwight D. Eisenhower to be his running mate for president. Though Nixon's career was early derailed that year by accusations of financial impropriety regarding political expenses, these accusations continued to gain steam as it was believed that he misappropriated campaign funds for personal gain. He claimed that his funds were campaign expenses only and that it would so that those expenses would not be charged to the taxpayer. Huh. I want stealing campaign funds to use them for things you're not supposed to. Sounds familiar. The heat gets so hot that Eisenhower is contacting lawyers about how to take Nixon off the ticket. But PR and campaign managers recommended that Nixon deliver a televised address to defend himself. He delivered this televised address and said that high donors did not get special treatment, that he was trying to save taxpayers money. And he talked about his middle class upbringing and his assets. He laid out to his credit all of his financial assets. Then he went for US heartstrings. And this is the reason that this is called the Checkers speech became one of his most memorable political moments prior to war at Watergate one other thing. He said, I probably should tell you because if we don't, they'll probably be saying this about me too. We did get something, a gift. After the election, a man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip, we got a message from Union Station in Baltim saying they had a package for us. We get down to get it and you know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel in a crate. They sent it all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted. And our little girl Trisha, the six year old, named his checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love that dog. And I just wanted to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it. This worked and it was a huge hit. People were celebrating. But Eisenhower wasn't convinced. He called for a meeting. In a fury, Nixon types up his resignation from the ticket, hands it to the aide to telegram it, and the aide takes it and throws it in the trash and says, nah, I'm not sending that. And this is one of those little moments in history that changed everything. If that aide had sent that telegram, resigning from the presidential ticket as Vice President, Nixon would never have become president. But that aide was like, he's a little mad. Let's wait it out, let's see what happens. Throws it in the trash. After serving as Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961, Nixon grew in popularity posing as this strong bulldog, anti communist. He even had his motorcade attacked by a communist group in Argentina, which made him even more popular in the wake of the Cold War, the McCarthy trials. This was a popular stance, especially for conservatives. He was so popular, he seemed to be a shoo in for president until a particularly charismatic and very sexy candidate entered the race. War hero and political sex symbol JFK announces his candidacy and Nixon is immediately upset. He promptly begins to attack JFK perceived weakness, which is that he's a Roman Catholic and particularly Southern Baptists do not like Roman Catholics. Jfk, however, combats this by selecting the gruff and burly Protestant Texan Lyndon B. Johnson to be his running mate. I hate, I really hate how much I'm just going to sidebar here. How much religion plays into every election versus the fact is this person qualified and do they have the ethical morals to do the job? Hopefully I hope in my lifetime that we will have freedom of and from religion and that it won't play such a role because we know many politicians have run claiming to be part of a religion they don't even believe in, but they know they have to in order to even get into the office. So JFK comes in and throws a wrench into Nixon's plans. Nixon faced a narrow defeat in the 1960 presidential election against John F. Kennedy. This loss was partially attributed to his less than favorable television presence during the first ever televised debates. Nixon and his aides immediately waged a campaign questioning the legitimacy of the election. Sound familiar? Seriously, if you want to know how Trump works, look at Nixon and Hitler. I shit you not. It's. It's a play by Play. They challenged JFK's victory in 11 states. And a lot of people brought this. Brought into this, Even though there was no evidence that there had been election fraud, there were recounts. Nothing was amiss. He just lost. In 1962, Nixon's political ambitions suffered another blow when he lost the California governor race. These consecutive defeats led many to believe that his political career was over. And however, he never stopped campaigning. He would work with other Republican candidates. He kept his name front and center. And in 1968, he was nominated for the Republican presidential candidate. He's back, baby, back. In part of his speech selecting the nomination, he said, tonight it is time. You know what I'm gonna do the voice. And tonight it's time for some honest talk about the problem of order in the United States. Let us always respect, as I do, our courts and those who serve on them. But let us also recognize that some of our courts, in their decisions, have gone too far in weakening the peace forces and against the criminal forces in this country. We must act to restore the balance. Let those who have the responsibility to enforce laws and our judges have the responsibility to interpret them, be dedicated to the great principle of civil rights. Change tactics there. But let them also recognize that the first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence. And that right must be guaranteed in this country. Threatening a crime wave. And if we are going to restore order and respect for law in this country, there was one place we're going to begin. We're going to have a new Attorney General in the United States of America. I pledge to you that our new Attorney General will be directed by the President of the United States to launch a war against organized crime in this country. I pledge to you that the new Attorney General of the United States will be an active, belligerent against the loan sharks and numbers racketeers that rob the urban poor in our cities. I pledge to you that the new Attorney General will open a new front against the filth peddlers and the narcotics peddlers who are corrupting the lives of children in this country who are on drugs because of this. My friends, let this message come through clear. What I say tonight, time is running out for the merchants of crime and corruption in American society. The wave of crime is not going to be the wave of the future in the United States of America. We will re establish freedom from fear in America so that America can take the lead and re establishing freedom from fear in the world. And do those that say the law and order is a code word for racism, I'm just gonna let that sit. But he said it, not me. Here's my reply. Our goal is justice for every American. If we are to have respect for law in America, we must have laws that deserve respect. Just as we cannot have progress without order, we cannot have order without progress. And so we commit to order. Tonight, let us commit to progress. And this brings me to the clearest choice among the great issues in this campaign. For the past five years, we have been deluged by government programs for the unemployed, programs for cities, programs for the poor. And we have reaped from these programs an ugly harvest of frustration, violence, failure from across the land. And now our opponents will be offering more of the same. More billions for government jobs, government housing, government welfare. And I say it is time to quit pouring billions of dollars into programs that have failed in the United States. To put it bluntly, we are on the wrong road. And it's time to take a new road to progress. Enter the first Republican public declaration to attack social services because black people had started to get welfare. Not because. Not because those systems didn't work, not because Medicare and Medicaid did not work, but because black people now had access to them. Because prior to the Civil Rights act, only white people were able to benefit and profit from those systems. We also hear our first introduction to the war on drugs, which would become exacerbated in Ronald Reagan's administration. The political climate was tumultuous, with widespread civil unrest. Obviously, during the Vietnam War, newly signed Civil Rights act and Voting Rights act, and the assassinations of MLK and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as John F. K's assassination. Nixon positioned himself as this candidate of stability in a time that is notoriously tumultuous. And he appealed to what he termed the silent majority of Americans who sought a return to traditional values and lawfulness Again, do you feel like I'm reading something from the 1960s or from 2020 to now? Also, there was a sleight of hand to disenfranchise the poor, the people of color, and the immigrant. This all shifted. So now all of the red states are staunchly Republican. It was no longer popular to attack the Civil Rights act directly or to attack desegregation. But that didn't mean it wasn't the goal. It very much was. It was about how do we cut off programs that allow access to these groups that now have these rights. This is also the timeframe where the abortion issue started to become a conservative issue because they had lost the civil rights battle to keep people, especially schools, segregated. And that's why it's so important to read the title, not just the title of a policy that gets proposed, but also pay attention to the outcome. I mentioned earlier in the episode the Executive order to restore truth and sanity to American history. Within that executive order, when you read it, there's a part that says, celebrate women's achievements in the American Women's History Museum and to not recognize men as women. Obviously that last line is a trans attack. But here's the thing. They say, celebrate women's achievements. Okay, well, that's what you say. That's great. That's wonderful. But what has this administration done? They have fired every single military leader who was a woman, who did a great job, many of whom served for over four decades, not for cause, but because they were women who emphasized diversity in their hiring. They've removed the DEI programs that protect women getting into school, women keeping their jobs, and they've also erased all the notable women off of things like the Arlington Cemetery website. Okay, so you can say you're going to celebrate women achievements all you want. Clearly that's not your intention. So in Nixon's speech, he's talking about equality, law and order, while he's going to attack programs that only recently allowed for people of color to qualify. So it's not about what is the title of your speech, or what is it that you say, what is the result of the impact of what you do? A key component of Nixon's strategy was called the Southern Strategy. It was designed to gain support from Southern white voters who were disenchanted with the Democratic Party because of the Democratic Sport party's advancement of civil rights by emphasizing themes of states rights, nodding back to the Civil War and things like law and order. Think, as we've heard it recently, immigrant crime wave, which wasn't real, but people Thought it was. It's the same playbook. It's the same thing over and over. Nixon aimed to attract these voters without overtly opposing civil rights. It was a tactic viewed by many as subtle and it appealed to the racial tensions which were very strong in the 60s. This strategy wasn't all tricky. Dick was willing to play dirty while while calling for law and order. No shock there. Politics. By this time, the Vietnam War is massively unpopular and Lyndon B. Johnson has just opened the door for a ceasefire and planned peace talks in Paris with South Vietnamese leader Nguyen Van Tu. Suddenly, Van Tu refuses to join. The sudden change made Johnson believe that Nixon was behind it. This became known as the Anna Chenault Affair. Anna Chenault was a socialite with ties to Nixon and direct connections to top leadership in Vietnam. Johnson was able to get a bombing cessation that would have dramatically swung the election in Democratic favor if these peace talks had gone well. On October 29th of 1968, a member of Nixon's campaign alerted an outside economist that Nixon was attempting to convince Van Tu, that Vietnamese leader, to hold off on peace talks until after the election. Reagan did the same thing against Jimmy Carter with the hostage peace talks, convincing Afghanistan to hold off on the release until after he was elected. And this actually lost Jimmy Carter the election. And this really played a role in Nixon's election as well. This news travels to Johnson, who orders the FBI to investigate this. They were able to establish a record back record back channel communications between Chenault and Nixon's manager. Johnson called it treason, but did not release the news to the public, fearing it would shame and create distrust in the office of the President. Nothing proven, but very, very shady, including a massive donation. Half a million dollars from the brutal military junta through the Greek organization kyp. This would become a source of anxiety in Nixon's presidency later. So they know that this backchannel communication is happening. They know that Anna Chenault is connected to the South Vietnamese leadership. They also trace hush money from violent guerrilla warfare through Greece into Nixon's campaign account. But he still runs. None of this becomes public until much later. In the general election, Nixon faced Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey and that third party candidate I mentioned earlier, George Wallace. Nixon's campaign focused on restoring law and order, achieving peace with honor in Vietnam. And he very narrowly won, in part because of how many states that third party candidate was able to take. He would become the president that made the longest distance call in history when men landed on the moon and ended the Vietnam War. And his approval rating during his presidency was almost as high as JFK's. But the White House horrors that is. The crimes that Nixon was participating in during his tenure started in 1970. A little over a year into his presidency, Nixon used governmental power to go after any perceived political enemies again. Sounds familiar. He started by trying to send the IRS after the Brookings Institute, which was an institute that researched public policy. And they didn't really agree with everything Nixon was doing. And because they disagreed, he wanted the IRS to go after them. He wanted extreme, extreme loyalty or nothing. He didn't like how educated staffers at, at the Brookings Institute were getting their influence into the press. This was a very big sticking point for him. He had a kind of a problem with going after any news organization that was against him, claiming that they were lying. Kind of the early messenger of fake news. In 1970, White House aide Tom Charles Houston sends a memo to the Chief of Staff H.R. haldeman, telling him he didn't trust that they had enough trustworthy assets at the irs. But if they could make plans to control the top three positions, they could get the IRS to go after their political enemies. Houston begins to compile a 43 page file called the Houston Plan that details security operations to track and report on Nixon's perceived enemies, both within the government, political opponents and the press. He called them left wing radicals and, and he opposed the anti war movement. See, none of this is new. This is all being repeated on a different scale, little bit different branding, essentially the same. They have been using the same tired, exhausted rhetoric since Nixon. Houston was made the White House liaison. Excuse me. Houston was made the liaison to the White House Interagency Committee on Intelligence and was chaired by none other than. The Mafia has proof of you and your boyfriend and current FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. There's so much about Hoover and the Mafia and the blackmail that they had on him to like him, not to investigate the way that he should until much later. And if you want to hear about that, I have a podcast I'm not actually working on right now, but it's called highway to Hell and there's an episode about the Mafia if you want to learn about Hoover's involvement with them. Just a little, little shameless plug there. The Houston plan became the Houston proposals and it was presented to the committee. Called for electronic burglary, illegal surveillance and opening the mail of so called radicals and political opponents violating so many laws. It even called for camps like those kind of camps where anti war protesters could be detained. Do you feel like I'm reading about 2025 yet, because that's been proposed pretty recently and protesters are disappearing off the street. In the summer of 1970, these proposals were submitted to the FBI, the CIA and the NSA. The only person that protested actually was Hoover, who said, ah, that's a little too far. And along with the Attorney General, they were able to convince Nixon to rescind the plan. Sort of. Some pieces of the plan would still be used. The Houston plan of proposals would only come out after the Watergate scandal. And they would help add steam to the shock waves to the American public about the dishonesty and the illegal activity within the presidency. February 16th of 1971, the Secret Service, at Nixon's request, installed new recording devices. Starting in the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, they added the President's, they added the President's Executive office, telephone lines, the EOB Office, the Lincoln Sitting Room, and Camp David. This was the most extensive recording system that had ever been put in place in a government building. Much of this was added due to Nixon's desire to have his presidency as he considered himself kind of the greatest president of all time. Obviously he wanted it to be recorded in great detail because this would also assist him in writing his own memoirs. He said that out loud with his mouth on tape, that he wanted these recording devices to help him with his memorize memoirs and solidify that he was the greatest president. I gotta tell you that Trump's love for Nixon is like actually extremely on brand. Most of his system was voice activated recorders and he at first didn't want everything recorded, but eventually started recording every conversation and this would come to bite him so hard in the ass later on. Something important to know here that in spite of his general paranoia about his political enemies, Nixon was obsessed with outshining jfk. He was very deeply offended that JFK beat him in that previous election and probably, you know, that he was a better speaker, he was more charismatic, he was more appealing. Nixon knew that and it made him mad. In April of 1971, Nixon complains to Henry Kissinger and H.R. haldeman saying Kennedy was cold and impersonal and treated his staff like dogs. I don't know how he would know that. And he says that his positive image was merely a facade. A facade? JFK's image, a facade. And then Nixon proceeds to complain that people didn't give him enough credit for how amazing he was and how many positive characteristics he had. He repeatedly ranted that he wanted his staff and his personal staff to talk more about his courage, his guts and his boldness. I have so Many thoughts that I'm not going to say about that. In summer of 1971, things heat up, literally and figuratively. Nixon becomes convinced that Jewish employees in the Department of Labor and Statistics were undermining him by intentionally changing the labor numbers. He and his cronies compile A list of 13 employees with Jewish sounding surnames and their political affiliations and send that list to Nixon. It would later be called the Jew Counting Memo. Every single employee on that memo were demoted, sent to different branches of the government, different agencies, and this would not come out until 1988. And before I get into the Pentagon Papers and what would eventually lead to the Watergate scandal, I'm going to take a break for my first official sponsor on this podcast, the Summit for Religious Freedom. What if I told you that protecting religious freedom isn't just about religion? It's about democracy, equality, and the rights we all hold dear, like LGBT rights, reproductive rights, and supporting our public school system. Protecting the separation of church and state is in fact protecting every foundation of our democracy. If you follow me, you know that I'm an ex Christian nationalist, an ex fundamentalist, and I'm very passionate about the fact that you cannot have freedom of religion until you have freedom from religion. So I'm very excited to this week, the weekend after this recording, be participating in the Summit for Religious Freedom's big conference and their meeting up on the hill, but also to support them as an organization. So srf, pronounced sirf, is a gathering place for everyone who believes in a future where diverse beliefs and values are respected, not suppressed by extremist agendas. At Surf, advocates, newcomers and everyone in between come together to take on the growing threat of Christian nationalism and the efforts to impose one narrow religious belief on us all. This movement is for big change and collaboration that strengthens our democracy, protects public schools, reproductive and LGBTQ rights, and more. Be part of the movement that's pushing back and standing up for religious freedom. And learn more about how you can join the fight@the srf.org and this is for everyone. The summit that I'm attending this weekend is gonna be religious leaders, ex fundamentalists, atheists, members of the LGBTQ community to all make sure that we can all believe freely and worship freely, which is a core foundational belief and right in our country. Now let's move on to the Pentagon Papers, which was a comprehensive history of the US's political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to to 1967. This study was created in 1967 by the then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara without the knowledge of President Johnson, because McNamara was questioning some of the decisions surrounding Vietnam and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. 36 analysts compiled 47 studies answering over 100 questions about the accuracy of information from the war and did the US violate the Geneva Accords. The papers contained 3,000 pages of historical analysis, 4,000 pages of original government documents, and 47 volumes. This was classified as top secret sensitive. It carried this classification due to the memos indicating the US's intentions were not for protection or aid, but for Cold War purposes against China. And the papers contained proof that the US had been interfering in affairs in Vietnam for the years prior to the actual conflict and that the US had expanded its attacks into Cambodia and Laos and other regions which never hit the US media. When the papers were released, it caused a huge amount of betrayal and it confirmed that those anti war protesters were right. They had been demonized by conservatives, by the Republican Party, by anyone opposed to the anti war protesters. These papers would prove that not only were their concerns valid, those concerns were correct. But the papers would never have become public without the help of Daniel Ellsberg. Daniel was an activist working for the nonpartisan RAND group who after two years of studying the war, went from being a Vietnam supporter to staunchly opposing it. He believed that if the American people knew this information that was in these papers, they would also oppose it and the war would end. Ellsberg began a campaign to make this study public and at one point managed to sneak out and copy the study. He scope here, 7,000 pages. Piece by piece, he snuck out and photocopied. He then leaked it to the press in March of 1971, withholding the volumes that affected any current negotiations. He gave it to the New York Times, who published it in a nine part series in June of 1971. Nixon and his team, in a panic trying to respond to the leak, suggested wild ideas like blackmailing former President Johnson about the bombing halt, claiming that he used it to favor Democrats in the election. Which the inverse was actually true, though the official records and classified documents would later disprove this and actually implicate Nixon using it to favor his election. This is another reason we put things in official channels and not in signal chats. Because then when there's leaks or there's controversies, we can verify who said and did what because it's through official channels. But also remember, there's recording devices all over the White House now. So now we can actually verify word for word pretty much what exactly happened. Here's A script from those recordings after the Pentagon paper's release. Haldeman has said, you could blackmail Johnson on this stuff and it might be worth doing. Nixon responds, how? Well, the bombing halt stuff and all the same file or it's in the same hands. President Nixon, how does that show? Oh, I wondered. He said, no, no, no, no, no. So Haldeman interrupts again, it isn't these papers but the whole bombing halt file. Nixon asked, do we have it? I've asked for it. You said we didn't have it. Henry Haldeman said we can't find it. Henry Kissinger chimes in, we have nothing here, Mr. President. President Nixon says, damn it, I asked for it. That's because I need it. Yeah, but Bob and I have been trying to put the damn thing together for three years. We have the basic history of it constructed on our own. But there is a file on it. Nixon asks, where's the file? Haldeman responds, houston swears to God there's a file on it at the Brookings Institute. Kissinger chimes in, I wouldn't be surprised. President Nixon says, all right, all right, all right. Sorry, I just heard that in Matthew McConaughey's voice. Haldeman in the hands of the same kind of. And then there's some bits and pieces of sentences, some unclear things. But President Nixon then goes, we're going to implement the Houston files. I want to implement it on a thievery basis. God damn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it. This is on a recording from the White House. President Nixon saying, we are going to break into these agencies. We're going to get this file and we are going to try to blackmail a former president. So again, to be clear, Nixon on tape is proposing burglary to help his political goals and to help with this leak. Nixon files a lawsuit attempting to halt further publications of the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg gave another copy to the Washington Post who then began publishing it. And Nixon files a lawsuit against them. But the judges rule against the government. They think that these papers should be allowed to be published. Nixon is furious and the voice recordings show on the phone Nixon is telling someone to try to tie Ellsberg to communist groups smear campaign, ruin him. The case goes all the way to the supreme court who rules 63 against Nixon in the government and allow for the papers to continue publication. Those judges stood on business and the Constitution and refused to allow the executive branch branch to censure the press. Nixon is losing it and all of this is feeding into his paranoia because his paranoia builds throughout his candidacy and his presidency that people are out to get it, that there's a plot against his political campaigns and his political aspirations. This paranoia begins to build with the release of these papers. The Pentagon Papers did not implicate him in any way. He did not need to respond to this. He wasn't president at the time of these events. And they had been compiled prior to his presidency. He had nothing to do with it. But it scares him so much he starts to implicate himself in other ways. But he didn't see it that way. He saw this as a direct attack. He summons a team of lawbreakers called the Plumbers, who would collect information on political opponents, including breaking into the Brookings Institute, finding that classified document on Lyndon B. Johnson. He also needs to find someone to run this team of what would modern. In modern times, the Plumbers would be hackers that you're sending into classified information or like giving them access to information they shouldn't have. So the Plumbers are the equivalent of our hackers. So he says in a recording to Haldeman about finding a leader to lead these Plumbers. He said, it's not about what we're doing now. You see what we need. I need somebody. I need really. I need a worker just to give you the personality type Whitaker, who work this his butt off and do it honorably. I need a. I really need a son of a bitch like Houston who will work his butt off and do it dishonorably. Do you see what I mean? Who will know what he's doing and will. I want to know too. And I'll direct him myself. I'll pitch it. I know how to play this game again. So these. These recordings were played in front of Senate after the Watergate scandal, on tape talking to the manager of his staff, saying, I want someone who will come commit crimes for me and I will direct them myself. During this conversation, Nixon is beating the desk for emphasis, insisting they get the Brookings break in done as and though that never actually happens. And when it doesn't, Nixon turns his sight onto his new enemy, Daniel Ellsberg, the activists who leaked the documents in the first place. So again, all of this is starting because Ellsberg releases the Pentagon Papers that have nothing to do with Nixon. But Nixon is so paranoid that it's a personal attack on him and his presidency. He first attempts to break into an institute and steal from them so that he can blackmail a former president. And when that break in doesn't Work. He decides he's now going to come after the activist who released the papers in the first place. Former formal memos between members of the Plumbers, including CIA operative Howard Hunt, expressed that they needed to use Ellsberg to bolster their political opposition and see if they could loop in opponents into Ellsberg's takedown. So now the plan is we're going to smear campaign, ruin Ellsberg. See if we can take some Democratic opponents against us with him. They suggest promoting that he was part of a deep state plot to take down the US Government and that they needed to prove that the Democrats were part of a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza place that doesn't have a basement. Kidding. That was Pizzagate, if you remember. The former memo called the Neutralization of Daniel Ellsberg reads as follows. I am proposing a skeletal operation plan aimed at building a file on Ellsberg that will contain all available overt, covert and derogatory information. This basic tool is essentially in determining how to destroy his public image and credibility. Items. Obtain all covert press materials on Ellsberg and continue in collection. 2. Request CIA to perform a covert psychological assessment evaluation of Ellsberg. 3. Interview Ellsberg first wife. 4. Interview Ellsberg's Saigon contacts, the restaurant owner Nikolai, and his mistress whom Ellsberg coveted. Request CIA, FBI and CIC for their full holding is on Ellsberg. Examine Ellsberg personnel files at isa, the Pentagon and the RAND Corporation include clearance materials. Obtain Ellsberg's files from his psychiatric analysis. Inventory Ellsberg's ISA and RAND colleagues. Determine where they are and whether they might be approachable. I realize that is a practical matter. Not all of the foregoing items can be accomplished. Even so, they represent what we desire to obtain. That's a formal memo from a CIA operative working as a plumber for Nixon to other members of the plumbers. September 3, 1971. The plumbers break into the LA office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, who is Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Nobody gets caught in this break in. This wouldn't become revealed until Watergate. Howard Hunt then forges and gives to a reporter two top secret US Department cables that claim Kennedy personally ordered the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Hunt. This is the CIA operative working on the Plumber's team would later admit in Watergate that he did intentionally forge these documents, intentionally release them, and did it to estrange Catholics from the Democratic Party. So much going on here, and they're like Listen, if we're going to take anybody down, we're going to make sure that it benefits us politically. So they break into this office. Meanwhile, this same CIA operative who's breaking into this psychiatrist office is also trying to make sure that Roman Catholics won't vote for Democrats. Then they switch targets. CBS News reporter Daniel Shore was invited to the White House in the August of 1971 to discuss an unfavorable review that he had given to a presidential speech. Because obviously, Nixon gives the best speeches of any president ever. And it's fake news if you don't think that. And it's not insane at all to be mad at a reporter and invite him to your house to berate and intimidate him for not liking your speech. Not weird at all. Again, kind of sounds familiar. It's all fake news if I don't like it when the press finds out. The White House aides fabricate and release to the press that Shore is being considered for an appointment. No, no, no. We like him. We didn't bring him over to bul. Bully and scare him. We're, we're, we want to appoint him to a job that doesn't exist. Nixon on tape personally approved this lie. Dictators and bad leaders will always go after the press. Always. So whenever someone is either controlling the press, discrediting the press, or just doesn't allow any bad press to be made, that is either a dictatorship or it is a very bad leader. Next on the chopping block was journalist Jack Anderson. In December of 1971, Anderson published documents revealing the President was secretly arming Pakistan, despite the White House claiming that they would remain neutral in the conflict between Pakistan and India. Again, the US has been doing this forever. We're always backhand arming somebody. But in this case, Nixon was arming Pakistan even though he had publicly said he was not going to do so. According to recorded conversation, Nixon and his aides became convinced that Anderson was being aided by a Mormon conspiracy inside the government. So we've got the Jewish conspiracy, now we've got the Mormon conspiracy. Obviously the Democrats are being sneaky, and we have to make sure that the Roman Catholics don't vote for the Democrats. It's a lot. It's a lot. And it keeps getting more outlandish as time goes on. It's like this whole. He truly believes that he's being plotted against by every group. And he literally invented a Mormon Illuminati that were helping a journalist. Anderson then releases a memo tying $400,000 of political contributions to the RNC to Nixon Justice Department's decision to drop an antitrust investigation against an ITT communications conglomerate. Weird. This check, $400,000 in political contributions, just so happens to come from the same organization that the Nixon Justice Department dropped a case against after they got the check. Interesting. Sounds so familiar. It's uncanny. They had some crazy ideas to shut Anderson down and even contemplated murdering him. This is on tape from the White House how they were going to murder him and get away with it. One of the aides even suggested somehow wiping poison on his wrist like KGB shit. Anyways, they don't get around to murdering Anderson because the Plumbers had something else to do. They're going to break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex. This is their new thing. Here we are. It's showtime now. But first, one more shady little thing Nixon did, because it comes up in the cases. It's called creep. It's the Committee to Reelect the President. So their sole purpose was to investigate, collect sabotage against his political campaigns, against the Democrats, and to make sure Nixon gets elected. That's their job. They are also integrally tied with the Plumbers, his team of people doing illegal shit. And some are in both groups. At this time in 1972, campaigns were not required to report the names of individual donors. So those names and amounts became this great big secret. And big corporations were illegally donating to campaigns. They could not legally do that, but because you didn't have to report it, it ah, you didn't know. Now why would big businesses want a certain man to be president? Could it be that they'll be get tax deductions and they will get more money while the working class pay more? Huh. Interesting. This list was kept by Nixon secretary Rosemary woods, who would later become known. This list would later become known as Rosemary's Baby, which is hilarious nod to the classic horror film. But here's the thing. CREEP didn't just accept donations. They demanded them. This, this, this shit is crazy. Because before researching this to actually write the podcast, I didn't know this bit. I knew about creep. I did not know that they had pickup men, literal gangsters that would travel the country telling individuals and corporations, hey, listen, Nixon's gonna win. You better get on board now or you're gonna pay for it later. Like with an audit from the irs, full scale mafia. He literally had gangsters going around the country forcing people to pay funds or be audited the next time he was elected. In May of 1972, Creep tried to break into The Watergate Hotel. This was the first attempt to steal top secret documents. They attempted to tap phone lines but were unsuccessful. And even today nobody is really sure why they decided to do this. Nothing sensitive was kept in this office complex from the Democratic National Committee Committee, but they were convinced it was. So the first attempt happens May of 1972. And it honestly seems like a fishing expedition. It doesn't seem like they were looking for something in particular as much as let's find anything to take our opponent down. It's a very classic show of projection. Because Nixon's administration was doing so much shady shit, they were paranoid that everyone else was doing shady shit. And so they had to kind of find what they were doing. According to later tapes, the only motive again seems to be hoping to find something. They wanted to find financial misconduct. And this plot that the Democrats had supposedly built to trip up the Republican campaign. G. Gordon Liddy, who was the highest ranking administration member charged in the Watergate scandal as a plumber, was the key planner of the break in and was told to photograph everything But Watergate as we know it doesn't go down until June 17th of 1972. A group of five burglars that were hired on by the creep enter the Watergate Hotel. And those burglars were Edward Martin, who went by the alias James W. McCord. He was a former CIA officer and security coordinator for President Nixon's reelection campaign. Frank Sturgis, a former CIA operative and soldier of fortune who had ties to anti Castro activities in Cuba. Bernard Barker, a Cuban American and former FBI agent who also worked with the CIA, also had close links to anti Castro operations. Eugenio Martinez, a Cuban exile and CIA asset who had participated in anti Castro missions. And I'm going to mispronounce. Virgilio. Virgilio Gonzalez, a Cuban locksmith and anti Castro exile who was recruited for his skills in picking locks and disabling security systems. As the crew began to attempt the break in, a security guard named Frank Wills notices that several doors are taped over. He doesn't think much of it at first because people carry boxes in and out. He thought, oh, someone must not not have wanted the doors to lock behind them. So he takes the tape off, but he comes back 10 minutes later and the tape's back on. So he immediately calls the police. Police arrive and immediately bust all five of these burglars. They find all the doors from the basement entrance to the sixth floor where the suite is all open, taped open and the actual floor leading into the Democratic suite had been jimmied open. So they're like, well, this is strange. They find immediately all the burglars give up, they surrender themselves. And the police are looking around and realize all of these burglars are. They're older, they're wearing suits, they have a lot of weird equipment with them, like recording equipment, walkie talkies, tons of rolls of film, tear gas pens, lock picks. $2,300 in cash in sequential serial numbers. The irony of this break in is that no sensitive information was kept here. And the only people that brought large amounts of cash were the robbers. Interesting twist. And the police, the Democratic Committee, and even the burglars didn't really know why they were there. The burglars, many of whom were anti Castro involved in some way, thought that they were trying to find information connecting the Democratic Party to Fidel Castro. But nobody had told them that. They just assumed because of their backgrounds, that's why they had been hired. Nobody who was there knew why they were there. Metro Police. Police officers scour the Democratic suite under Acting Chief Charles Wright. FBI and Secret Service are called in. The Attorney General gets warrants to search the hotel rooms that the burglars had rented to access the building 214 and 314. So it's important here that Watergate is a hotel. And there's also a portion of it that's a rented kind of office complex. They found more burglary tools in the rooms. Another $4,200 in the same serial number sequence. And bugging equipment, which was very illegal. And I mean very illegal. They also find out that this is the third incident since that first incident in May where a lock was attempted to be picked. And some of the same burglars had been staying in the hotel that same night. The night after the break in, Liddy lets his boss. I love that his last name is Liddy. Like, there's. I could just riff on. I'm not going to, but it's hilarious to me. Liddy lets his bosses at CREEP know his men were arrested. And the Nixon White House freaks out. Attorney General John Mitchell immediately issues a press statement saying that creep, the campaign and the administration had nothing to do with it. Which. Why would you. Why would you do that? He releases it so fast, it makes it suspicious because nobody knows who these burglars are yet. Nobody knows who sent them, nobody knows why they were there. And he's immediately like, hey, it wasn't me. Nope, wasn't me. Very suspicious. And while Nixon is working on the COVID up, the White House horrors are starting to be discovered. So people are starting to find out about the crimes that Nixon has been committing this entire time. In June of 1972, the Washington Post reports that one of the burglars, Edward Martin, whose alias is James McCord, was GOP security aid. So now they've got a link to a political party. The FBI had also found a check to one of the burglars that was written by Nixon's Midwest finance chairman. Now they have a connection to the presidency. Five weeks later, the Washington Post would publish this. And in order. And in order to keep the FBI at bay, to stop them from investigating the administration again, on record in these recording. Talk about telling the FBI that this is a CIA operation. You're going to uncover some shit we can't have you disrupting. Back off. But the FBI director, Patrick Gray, gets uncomfortable with that explanation and continues to investigate. Then the Nixon administration offers $100,000 in exchange for the burglars to plead guilty and not give any information. Mafia, like this. This is Mafia organized crime, hitman stuff. They ended up paying 154,000. And all the burglars except Lydia and McCord plead guilty. And that kind of seems to be the end of. Seems like, oh, they were just, you know, maybe working for somebody personally. They don't have any other ties. And the news kind of gets disenchanted with it. They didn't. They stopped paying attention to it. It was such a preposterously lame attempt to commit a crime. They didn't spend a lot of time on it. Two reporters from the Washington Post, however, thought it was a big deal, and they thought there was more to it. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward kept tracking the scandal down. In October of 1972, they released evidence of financials connecting Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, to a secret fund of widespread intelligence operations that was paying for illegal surveillance and sabotage against Democratic presidential contenders. This is blueprint at this point. And don't get me wrong, I think that every political party has, you know, they're doing some investigating. They want to find some dirt. They want to, but this was next level. An entire slush fund dedicated to sabotaging political opponents. The information came from an important informant named Deep Throat. Again, more jokes I could make. But I have to say this. I think it's hilarious that the informant on the Dick Nixon episode is called Deep Throat. It's just. It's too much for me. It's great. I'm glad that history gives us some comic relief and we don't find out who Deep throat is until 30 years later. I'm a stop. I'm going to go off on something else in a minute. So Deep Throat from the summer of 1972 would feed these reporters information about Nixon and his administrator's crimes. This guy had the good shit. This was later revealed to be FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, who confirmed leads with the reporters and guided their reporting by not giving them any direct evidence. He famously told them, follow the money. That's how they found the checks. That's how they found the slush fund. They would meet in a parking garage at 2am after one or both of them would signal for a meeting. He knew Bob, Mark felt. Deep Throat knew Bob Woodward personally. And if Bob moved his flower pot at his apartment, then Deep Throat would know he wanted a meeting. And if Deep Throat wanted a meeting, he would send him a sex tape. I'm kidding. He would get his newspaper and he would circle the 20th page, make a sign of a clock for what time he wanted to meet. Despite all of this. So all of this is still going down, even though the majority of the press has kind of reduced talking about it a little bit. But these reporters are still on the case despite all of this. In 1972, Nixon wins reelection in a land. I mean, I'm talking a WWE SmackDown landslide. 60.7% of the popular vote. 520 electoral votes. Like, beat the shit out of this guy. Nixon won by discrediting the news. Fake news, fake news, fake news, Right. Saying they're not telling the truth. None of that's real. I had nothing to do with it. And by promising to slowly take troops out of Vietnam and replace the draft with only signing up voluntarily in the military. And he accused and claimed that his opponent, se Senator McGovern from South Dakota, was a left wing communist, because of course he did. And McGovern was actually a World War II hero bomber pilot. Facts, you know. Also, McGovern had this crazy idea that, you know, we should give more social services to the poor and middle class and tax the wealthy. More crazy. I know, it's so crazy. But Watergate roars back to life in 1973 when the plumbers who were facing trial, McCord and Liddy, who participated in the break in, are all found guilty of conspiracy, burglary and bugging. Liddy and Hunt, Hunt is the plumber who's the CIA operative, are found guilty of supervising the burglary from a nearby hotel. And Liddy was sentenced to 20 years. All of the other burglars had pled guilty in exchange for reduced sentences. Then when FBI director testifies that the White House staff counsel John Dean sat in on Watergate interviews. The Senate organizes a special committee to see why the White House was involved in those, in, in those interviews and in the investigation. As the Washington Post keeps releasing all this information, Nixon vehemently deny, deny, deny, deny all of it. But through interviews and documents, Bernstein and Woodward identified a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage run directly from within the Nixon's reelection committee. They, they found that White House Chief of Staff H.R. haldeman was controlling secret funds for this illegal activity, separate it from the slush fund controlled by the Attorney general. Then in 1973, the same counsel John, the same White House counsel John Dean begins political espionage and sabotage against Democratic presidential contenders. Again, like they just don't, they just keep doing it. They're under investigation. They're trying to ward off all these accusations, but they keep doing it. White House recordings record staff talking about the COVID up and how to use presidential privilege and the fifth Amendment to stonewall the Senate committee. Again, this is all on recordings. They also try to keep up with Hunt's demands for hush money. So Hunt's taken a fall. The CIA operator, he's like, okay, I'll go to jail. I'm not going to report you, but you're going to pay me and my family. But then McCord, one of the other burglars who did plead guilty, who was convicted, decides he's done being the fall guy. He decides to talk. He writes to Judge Sirica as saying that the witnesses were coerced, they perjured themselves on the stand, and that people way higher than Liddy were involved. And it all comes crashing down. Nixon tries to save it. April 30, 1973. He acknowledges the blame, but not the responsibility of the scandal. By not monitoring his employees more closely, he announces the resignation of Ehrlichman and Haldeman, his top advisors. In May and June, the Senate holds televised Watergate trials. And all the truth come out of all the White House horrors. That White House counsel John Dean decides to throw them all under the bus. Mitchell, the Attorney General, Ehrlichman, Haidelman, all of them. He writes an expose telling everything. Who was involved, who contributed, contributes. And he reveals to the Senate the presence of these recording devices. The Senate demands the tapes and Nixon refuses to comply, citing executive privileges. He refuses to comply with subpoenas and the lawsuit against him fails. The President tries to operate above the law. He tries to fire the federal investigators who are investigating him. The administration offers redacted transcripts to protect national security. And that is refused. They're like, no, you're giving us the tape. Two Attorney Generals resign over Nixon's actions to deny and fire the special prosecutors. This was later called the Saturday Night Massacre. But it made his refusal to send the tapes that much more suspicious. And it made the Senate and the prosecutors want them more. Because why are you fighting so hard to release these? It also made the American people really upset. In November, the new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski takes over to solve this issue once and for all. When the tapes are finally turned over, he finds that one of the tapes is missing and one of them has an 18 minute gap in it. They claim that the Secretary accidentally deleted. Members of the administration are indicted and Nixon is named as an unindicted co conspirator. Jaworski demands dozen of additional tapes dating way before Watergate. And Nixon again refuses. People though they start to drop. Attorney General John Mitchell was guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury. Served 19 months. His wife in this story actually when she found out what her husband was up to, plan to tell the press and Nixon's administration abducted her and beat her to keep her quiet. Chief of Staff H.R. haldeman was found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction. Served 18 months. John Ehrlichman, guilty of conspiracy and obstruction. ServED 18 months. Charles Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, served seven months. G. Gordon Liddy refused to testify, served 4.5 years. E. Howard Hunt organized the break in served 33 months. 69 people were indicted, 49 convicted, 48 have served prison time and one woman was beaten and kidnapped. July 8th of 1974, the court case comes up to the Supreme Court and there was a unanimous 8 to 0 decision to turn over the fucking tapes. One justice recused himself. I guess he knew some of the defendants that were mentioned. So doing the right thing, he recused himself. This included what would be called the smoking gun tape from June 23rd of 1972 where Nixon and Haldeman discussed that the the plans to make the FBI believe this was a CIA operation so that they would stop investigating. That tape was really the nail in the coffin. July 27, the House passes the first articles of impeachment. And they understand that if these impeachment articles pass, Nixon is not only going to be impeached and removed, he's probably going to face criminal charges. Finally seeing the writing on the wall, Nixon announces his resignation on August 8th of 1974. The next day, Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as President and later pardons Nixon on September 8th of 1974, preventing him from facing any criminal charges. I'm going to talk about that a little bit here in a second. So Nixon ends up riding off into the sunset. He never faces charges for breaking so many laws. He eventually does speaking tours, he writes several books, he becomes a millionaire and never faces the consequences outside of the embarrassment of having to resign for what he did. And as much as I think that the Watergate scandal is so pivotal in America's losing trust in the government, I think Gerald Ford pardoning him is even more so. Because how different would we feel about the office of the President or the branches of government if Gerald Ford had said, you broke the law? I don't care if you're the President, you're going to jail. I'm very peeved about that. I think that Gerald Ford pardoned him and I think it might have been because he knew about some of what was going on, so he was saving his own tale. But I think that that pardon really solidified the utter distrust that would grow from the American population to the presidency from that point forward. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the brief synopsis of the Watergate scandal. And you're like, wait a minute, brief? This is over an hour long. I know there were so many other things and so many side roads and so many people involved, especially at the CIA. I mean I could have, I could do a three part series on this, but I wanted to give you the overview. So as we saw March 15, Signal Gate are leaders using non secure channels, just exercising incompetency and also violating rules like with respect to top secret information. But a lot of this distrust and a lot of these same problems originated in the Nixon era, during civil rights, the Vietnam War and with Watergate. I hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I hope you learned some new things. Don't be offended if someone calls you a commie. They've been doing that for a very long time. As always, thank you to my Patreon supporters. You have been so lovely. Thank you for your votes on topics. Thank you for just sending your encouraging little notes. I share some of my personal stories and some of my adventures on there and it's becoming a really amazing community. If you would like to sign up for $4 a month to vote on episodes, get early access to merchandise and kind of hear what's going on behind the scenes with me as well as longer form videos and write ups, please go to my Patreon. It'll be in the show. Notes and sign up there. And I will see you next week with an incredible interview from a NOW author, but an escape, a woman who escaped from very violent Christian fundamentalism, Tia Levings. And I will see you next week on Flipping Tables.