. He's penned five books about Watergate and 10 books in total; including his most recent tome, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his Followers. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? John Dean's third day of testimony at the Watergate hearings in 1973. . Richard Nixon resigned as president the next year. Former White House Counsel John Dean's testimony in the Watergate investigation helped topple Richard Nixon's presidency. John Dean sits with his wife, Maureen, waiting to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Watergate in 1973. . March 23, 1973: The McCord letter is made public by Judge Sirica in open court at McCord's sentencing hearing. His first memoir, Blind Ambition, was turned into a TV movie in 1979. The mainstream media narrative about Watergate is a grotesque and fantastic distortion of historical fact. John Dean Predicts Criminal Case Against Trump After 'Powerful' New Testimony. Cox had been appointed after President Nixon fired his Attorney General Richard Kleindienst in April 1973 and the Senate insisted a special prosecutor be appointed by Kleindiensts replacement, Elliot Richardson. Dean's first wife is Karla Ann Hennings, whom he married in 1962. (See U.S. President Nixon's aide John Dean is sworn in before the Senate committee conducting hearings on the Watergate break-in and the conduct of the Nixon administration, on June 1, 1973. The targets of the hacking were the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, from which information was stolen and released to harm the Clinton campaign and in turn would help the Trump campaign. In reissuing Blind Ambition, which spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list and has been out of print for over two decades, author John Dean has added a powerful new Afterword, an extended essay in which he explains with the new clarity why (and how . His silence is perpetuating an ongoing coverup, and while his testimony will create a few political enemies, based on almost 50 years of experience I can assure him he will make far more real friends. [46][47], In 2022, Dean said the January 6 Committee had an overwhelming case against Trump.[48]. If it was a county sheriff they wouldnt [stay], Dean said. McGahn decided he would resign rather than carry out the orders, not unlike Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus when they refused to fire Cox. Featuring New Interviews with John Dean, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein . [25] Three years later, Dean wrote a book heavily critical of the administration of George W. Bush, Worse than Watergate, in which he called for the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for allegedly lying to Congress. DEAN: . PRINTING OFFICE, 2019). Cognition, 9 (1981)1-22 Elsevier Sequoia S.A., Lausanne - Printed in the Netherlands John Dean's Memory: A case study ULRIC NEISSER" Cornell University Abstract John Dean, the former counsel to President Richard Nixon, testified to the Senate Watergate Investigating Committee about conversations that later turned out to have been tape recorded. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little legal impact, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland. Secondly, I believe as an attorney, he has an ethical obligation to testify. [4], After graduation, Dean joined Welch & Morgan, a law firm in Washington, D.C., where he was soon accused of conflict of interest violations and fired:[2] he was alleged to have started negotiating his own private deal for a TV station broadcast license, after his firm had assigned him to complete the same task for a client. 98-103): According to the report, in June 2017 after emails setting up a June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians became known in the White House, the President engaged in efforts to prevent disclosure of the emails and then dictated a false or misleading statement characterizing the meeting as about adoptions in order to protect his son, Don, Jr. WATERGATE: On the weekend that the Nixon reelection committee men were arrested in the DNC offices at the Watergate, Nixons campaign manager, and former attorney general, John Mitchell, along with his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman and former White House Counsel, John Ehrlichman, drafted a false press release about the men arrested at the Watergate. [21] This theory was subsequently the subject of the 1992 A&E Network Investigative Reports series program The Key to Watergate.[22][23]. They don't know if they're a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. [27], After it became known that Bush authorized NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense". . Fired white House counsel John Dean testifies before the Senate Watergate Committee while his wife, Maureen, watches in Washington, June 28, 1973. Desperate mountain residents trapped by snow beg for help; We are coming, sheriff says, Newsom, IRS give Californians until October to file tax returns, Californias snowpack is approaching an all-time record, with more on the way, Column: A transgender patients lawsuit against Kaiser is a front for the conservative war on LGBTQ rights, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President,, Nixon hated PBS, but his Watergate scandal gave the fledgling network a major hit, From Chris Rock to the SAG Awards. Cooper asked Dean, whom the FBI dubbed the "master manipulator" of the Watergate scandal when he flipped to cooperate with prosecutors against Nixon, how high the bar must be for the Justice Department to pursue the charges against Trump. It also led to the creation of the PBS NewsHour.. McGahn refused to follow the Presidents order, recalling the opprobrium that met Robert Bork following the Saturday Night Massacre. John Dean, the former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, testified Monday that he sees "remarkable parallels" between Watergate and the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report . But Dean understands how its not so easy to walk away from the center of power. Dean also told the Senate Watergate committee that if testimony by Jeb Stuart Magruder, a former White House aide, was credible, the President probably had advance knowledge of plans to break into . WATERGATE: President Trump repeated efforts to have Attorney General Sessions reverse his recusal un-recuse himself to take control of the Special Counsels investigation parallels President Nixons attempt to control the FBI investigation through his former White House Counsel John Ehrlichman. While navigating the crisis together has strengthened their bond, Dean still has regrets over putting his wife through the extraordinary experience. Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, the last time I appeared before your committee was July 11, 1974, during the impeachment inquiry of President Richard Nixon. The Watergate Hearings Collection covers 51 days of broadcasts of the Senate Watergate hearings from May 17, 1973, to November 15, 1973, and seven sessions of the House impeachment hearings on May 9 and July 24 30, 1974. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. He chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs Blind Ambition (1976) and Lost Honor (1982). 9 Jun 2017. You cant look at Watergate today without looking through the lens or at least a filter of the Trump presidency, Dean said. For a short amount of time, President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen was set to appear before the House Oversight Committee to give public testimony relating to . [15], Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. Were friends. I always envisioned going in and out of government. [33], In speaking engagements in 2014, Dean called Watergate a "lawyers' scandal" that, for all the bad, ushered in needed legal ethics reforms. Journalists Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Lesley Stahl also offer their recollections on the story that helped make their careers. Dean is a pretty good gem," Nixon confided to Haldeman on March 2, 1973. John Dean, the White House counsel to President Richard M. Nixon who was once dubbed the "master manipulator" of the Watergate scandal by the FBI, predicts former President Donald Trump may finally be about to face some serious consequences. He's penned five books about Watergate and 10 books in total; including his most recent tome, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his Followers. Learn how and when to remove this template message, United States House Committee on the Judiciary, 1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-06-25; Part 1 of 6, Impeachment process against Richard Nixon, Master list of Nixon's political opponents, Committee for the Re-Election of the President, The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court, Presentation by Dean and Barry Goldwater, Jr. on, Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, "The Nation: How John Dean Came Center Stage", "1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-06-25; Part 1 of 6", "Virginia State Bar Attorney Records Search (citing to 12 November 1973 revocation of license following hearing of Disciplinary Board, VSB Docket No. This is a taped except of Dean as he recalled that meeting with President Nixon. Dean, an executive producer on the CNN project, helped wrangle some of the participants, including Alexander Butterfield, now 96, the deputy chief of staff who dropped the bombshell that Nixon had a taping system in the White House, which ultimately led to the presidents resignation in August 1974. He moved to Los Angeles with wife Maureen, took business courses at UCLA and worked as an investment banker during the 1980s. But on March 21, 1973, he went to the Oval Office and told Nixon there was "a cancer " on the presidency that would take them all down they didn't . No one has sought to control this narrative more than former White House Counsel John Dean. It's an unpleasant place. Gray's nomination failed and Dean was directly linked to the Watergate cover-up. Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. Hence, it is now clear that White House Counsel represents the Office of the Presidency and not the current occupant of that office. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. In the summer of 1973, the Watergate hearings held the country spellbound. He said he had found information via the Nixon tapes that showed what the burglars were after: information on a kickback scheme involving the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. In Starz's new Gaslit, premiering Sunday, central Watergate figure John Dean is played by Dan Stevens. Mr. Trump asked Comey to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation by saying so to the public. His testimony during the Watergate scandal helped bring down Nixon. About two months later, on June 25, 1973, Dean started delivering his testimony in front of the Senate Watergate Committee, during which he spoke about . [13] It was alleged[who?] The hearings, recorded by the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT), were broadcast each evening in full, or gavel to gavel, by PBS stations across the nation, so that viewers unable to watch during the day could view the complete proceedings at home. untenable at some point. Senator Russell Feingold, who sponsored the censure resolution, introduced Dean as a "patriot" who put "rule of law above the interests of the president." For several reasons I believe he should testify. Fifty years later, that's how John Dean, the former White House counsel whose marathon testimony before the US Senate's Watergate Committee tipped the dominoes toward the ultimate resignation . In the 1995 film Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone, Dean was played by David Hyde Pierce. The Watergate Hearings, 50 Years Ago: Truth Was Not Up for Debate . 90- 98): According to Mueller, in addition to McGahn, President Trump pressured former campaign aide Cory Lewandowski and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to curtail the Special Counsels investigation through Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the investigation. Nixon vigorously denied all accusations that he had authorized a cover-up, and Dean had no corroboration beyond various notes he had taken in his meetings with the president. With his plea to felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer in Virginia and the District of Columbia.[18][19]. Gjon Mili . Meanwhile, John Dean (Dan Stevens) was reportedly aware of the break-in plans and later tried to cover it all up. MUELLER REPORT RE EFFORTS TO INFLUENCE WITNESSES WITH PARDONS ( PP. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. What did Disney actually lose from its Florida battle with DeSantis? . Elizabeth Holtzman, a former member of Congress who served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings, said in her interview he was an essential part of the criminal enterprise. Dean himself talks about how he crossed a moral line early in his White House tenure. In his testimony, Dean asserted that Nixon covered up Watergate because he believed it was in the interest of national security. 1973, Nixon fired Dean. Yes, Dean and Mo are still married.