Nixon, Moore & Dean on Watergate and Executive Privilege

I wonder if the, you know, I'm thinking that perhaps Raja is not going to give such a thank you.
I mean, he should say this by now, but I don't know.
You know, we have to give him a thank you.
A standard rule for all briefings will be a half hour.
A standard rule for all briefings will be a half hour.
And the point is that it takes over an hour and a half to complete.
See, Ron didn't brief the whole time himself.
There was a prior briefing on some other subject.
Oh, I see.
He's pretty good at cutting them off.
I'm tired of taking their questions.
Labor to labor, I feel the difference between Rick and Ron.
use some curse or how to eat me out of the well.
I have to think about what is breaking and so forth.
What is your view about that?
Thank you for the briefing.
I was putting out some other fires.
What do you think, Dad?
I've got the number.
I've got 10 or so in the air.
They didn't edit anything.
They wanted an understanding of
Why, I don't know the difference between Britain and Dr. Christensen and what does it mean to be his father?
As a whole, I don't know how you're going to answer that.
Ron called me briefly and said, I think I couldn't sleep.
The fact that you would not do what Kissinger does and have to do a formal meeting with the committee on this subject.
Next question was, will he accept a phone call
But the chairman, Mr. Russell, of course he would.
And I would say that we would not want to get into an informal give and take with Kennedy and Biden.
Right.
I was hoping that he would get a hold on it.
Yeah, a hold on it.
And that's what they say about the ranking member and the chairman.
But that's a bad precedent for this reason.
Then you've got Irvin and Baker.
I mean, now they're going to be called early.
I think we better hold right here that you read it as a tone of the fact that we are in a lot of out of shape here.
It's a different matter.
It's all very good policy.
They go to the planet again.
And what he said, how he said, now I'm going to get into this compared to a totally different situation, to a different individual, to a different thing, to a different set of facts.
And what that means is that this is a day-to-day case-by-case basis.
And I don't know what he said about the planet.
Yes.
Well, Levine claims that the, that he said that the normal procedure would be to answer my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my, uh, my,
general policy.
You can only make decisions on given facts and given circumstances.
You don't have to give hypotheticals where we can see what we're going to do.
Good.
All right.
Well, now, let's come to your other question.
What's your other question?
Mr. Crackwell and fellow Lombard, who they also invited to be here before the committee.
Lombard is a young man who used to work at the
print it for the ladies.
He gave a private interview to the Washington Post sometime last fall and had never printed it until recently.
Lombard did volunteer work for my office in researching all of the state campaign election laws and determined that each department, each state, would do as they can to see what they did with the Lombard people, including the nephew of the judge.
Why does he do that?
We don't know.
You know, it was fair enough.
And he did call his friends in the rally this morning and said, What the hell?
I got myself in here.
And I talked to Don Blake last night, said, You got to hold a lumbar.
You got to not pickle up there before that committee.
Don said, I'll take care of it.
So he's not going to.
He had already accepted.
Now he turned it around today.
He's got it turned off.
He's not going around.
He just doesn't have anything to add.
He's never made it from his office to the committee.
And he really doesn't.
The menial job he did for me as a volunteer, as a worker, he dealt directly with me from time to time.
It was just mechanically searching state laws.
What is it supposed to put out?
Well, they tried to play it.
There was some link between Liddy and Dean.
And Dean, there was.
Oh.
The link was that Liddy had to respond to a campaign.
Yeah.
Compliance over there.
I had it here, and I was keeping an eye on making sure that they weren't compliant.
All right, all right, all right.
Well, let's come to the Bureau part now.
We've got two issues there, really.
One is, where we go now with Pat Gray.
And the second is, did we try to do something dramatic with this colostomy?
I reflected on that first on Gray.
I think that's just a watch and a wait.
We don't know how the Senate is going to respond to my letter.
But the point is, they may take it out of our hands.
That's why I say we're going to hold them hostage.
This is so very counterintuitive.
I'm sorry I mentioned it.
It was all in my head.
Seriously.
Right.
I'm not going to stick around with a great exposure.
It would be a perfect excuse.
Sure.
I think that, again, the reason I'm just going to do it is because it's
The other thing they could do, as we talked earlier, would be to take subpoenaing.
I think that that'll probably work.
I mean, it's just like the disease between now and the next ten and a half that no one will figure out what exactly could have happened.
Well, I thought that... Why not turn it down for a time?
I wouldn't be concerned if the committee subpoenaed this at all because I think we've made an accord.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would say, well, I don't know.
I mean, the committee's got to make that decision.
It's got to be the first one.
But they get the decree from the Secretary of State.
I like them, of course, but what do we do?
What happens if we do?
I don't think we will.
Oh, you're hitting them head on?
Yeah.
And that's coming out.
Coming out.
We have a parallel situation also because I have been in it now.
We found publicity in a common cause lawsuit.
Do we have any lawyers?
Yes, we do.
We've got them on the run.
In fact, we thought they wouldn't have settled the case because of the fact that the expenses caused them to keep the case going.
We've got some accountants on the line.
Very aggressive on a close like that.
We have been with the other O'Brien's too.
It's been five or seven.
It's great.
I like seeing what they do.
You know, it's funny.
It's funny.
That's a hell of a story.
So what are you using it for?
I have taken a reading of that recently.
Oh, I remember.
This was just, it had been dormant until yesterday when they, when they brought the, you know, some things against Dean McClure, Sloan, Murray, what were they doing with that?
Well, the first question is, who represents the Department of Justice?
We had that problem with Colson in the O'Brien suit.
I don't think the same contract exists here.
Once we resolve that, then we move to Washington.
But I haven't actually served yet.
So I've got to move according to the crime.
Relatively, one, what they're after, that I can figure out, is before Stan's got to talk to the lawyers,
before that committee was really structured.
He called me a couple of times and said, one, we've got the old charters, 16-8, we can look at them, some of them are still good.
I did that.
Then he asked me a couple of questions about forms and structures in relation to the committee, and I told him that they have them separate.
Well, he told me, if you are, you're supposed to write your own questions.
He was the judge part of that, so.
Well, now here's the problem there, and then the next thing is, you know, Brian,
the lawyers against the re-election committee.
They will subpoena me as not.
And we have no, and they'll be saying we want the dean's investigation, we want all of your records, files, everything else.
And they'll be getting what the Congress can't get from you.
How do you fail to that?
Well, there is judicial, the executive director of the federal legal branch, and you fight that through the courts.
Well, hell, it's easier to do it there.
Tell the judges that would be how long our fuel consumption would be.
I would do it.
Ever.
You know, seriously.
But that would apply to all, entirely to all directions.
Right.
The only way, the only thing we might do again is say that we got a lot of the public information.
That if you want us to have an interrogatory.
Right.
Okay.
That's good.
I'll come back to that.
Uh, instead of you, you follow a little of what I've heard.
I know what I've heard, because if I wait too long, I say, well, if you'd like to be alive, I would be able to see you.
I think I've accomplished a lot of things for you.
I've got a very strong love for him.
Does that make sense?
I love it.
That's good.
Yeah.
President, welcome.
Welcome to the White House.
It's my privilege.
I don't think you can judge me for it.
We can't.
I don't think you can judge me for it.
So if they want to take it to the first, we'll be glad to do it.
Something else that I'd like to get down to you this afternoon is one of the former
The other thing is the
Your past statements in a Congress that probably talked about this the other day, they were rather already asking the question of the press office whether the president criticizes you as a member of the House.
If he, in his case, of Sherlock, not his distinction, as I told the press office people, is that he was criticizing the withholding of documents and information, which we have never done.
We've been voted three times.
Now, even the president has never criticized.
Well, one of the president rather will step into a .
But he's saying that he's saying the budget money's about to tap up here, and you're doing the right thing to criticize.
I said that the committee was not asking for any questions.
They were asking for information.
They'd be quiet.
Even though we .
We didn't ask Mr.
Brewer to testify.
We didn't ask Mr. John to testify.
We asked for him to remain unkilled for one or five months.
I would say President Trump indicated an executive order.
There would be no full operation, whatever.
And I would say that was received with 100% approval by the Washington press corps.
It would burn their ass.
That's good.
I remember very well.
I did one.
You did a fair one.
Uh, what happened was that, uh, the, uh, the question, I, I can't report to any of the Congress, because they, uh, they were considering, uh, the Constitutional Act, and, uh, and, uh, and, uh, and, uh,
I mean, I make the statement to the right, but it was .
I was concerned that there might be a precedent problem with that.
The other item is on this thing about using bills smaller.
Dick and I have kicked it around.
It is potential, in both regards, potentially dangerous and potentially helpful.
One, right now we don't know everything that Sullivan knows.
You know, you ask for a couple of labels to put together.
I'd like to be sure I get that power.
I don't know what you know.
That's right.
Anyway, get that out of there.
Now, once we take that step, we are theoretically always, we said that we were creating this knowledge.
You know, I don't, I have no reason to discuss that.
But I can't get off the plane.
It's pretty dangerous.
But still, she's gone here.
And we don't do anything with her.
We just have to see if we can do the next step to assess her.
Then we can talk to the vehicle and say whether it's true or not.
I just think it's important that the White House be involved in this.
because yes this has to be this can't be picked to the white house
Council to receive information, reports from the other part of the government.
The second, the information he has is that it's not related to the current conduct of the government.
There are facts that are important for the government to know, but the action on it is what I would worry about.
If we can't have the Lighthouse next week, we ought to figure a little bit better.
The fact that six is what we want to expose to staff is that what we say is that before
they can call me and report back and come back to me when I tell them I'm pleased.
The Bureau must take advantage of Biden's arrest, of course, for personal and political purposes.
That's what the President and the President of the United States have done.
That's what we're going to do.
We're going to try our best.
Now, stay with me.
If you establish that part of the 68th campaign was subject to one attack, that's the direction of the Democratic Party, whether it's President or not.
That's sensational, I thought.
Because if we went over this hearing, the first thing would be a request for an amendment of the resolution for the 68th campaign.
And we brought the scope of it in the Democrats, didn't we?
It would be, well, of course, the allegations have unwired now.
We don't know whether he, I don't think he has them, but he might have some of them.
We've been unable to.
That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the,
And they were ordered to carry out the order.
They were well buried over there right now.
We have to know what...
Some of them, I've never given them all fours.
It's always possible.
It's always the only spot I want to volunteer off.
I would be an electrician involved.
I don't know how that would happen.
I wonder how.
not just to
The president himself and his staff, without giving a name, is going to leave a lot of files and be very frightening to the people who live in the Johnson camp who are still around in the Democratic Party today.
Well, the next step is to hear back from Sullivan.
I hope he will be with us.
I promise he is.
I really think what has to happen I think in general
You see, the problem we've got on both light weeks and the law, uh, with that, uh, grade difference, frankly, they've got to be another.
Uh, light weeks has done a lot of new jobs.
I saw this comment, comment, comment, great support, comment, comment.
The thing that's going to be true is that Brady is a wonderful guy.
Brady is not the smartest guy in the world.
He's not dumb.
He's not very smart.
Brady is not the smartest guy in the world.
And the way that Brady is going to do it, he's going to do it all the time.
And I think we want to use it for our own good, for our own good.
You know, you've got to see who's right for all of you, and I don't think we're going to be trying to get us right or wrong.
I would, I couldn't compare to what I have.
We have an assessment of that situation, and we will be detection, and we'll stay forward.
takes this all very personally.
I don't know if you can see it, but he did say something, you know, that when a lad gets prisoned on it, he forgets it.
That's all I said.
And I, I, yes, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
He didn't have to break out of that.
That's the thing about it.
He didn't have to bring out the fact that he had done it back to his name.
He didn't have to bring out the fact that he had done it back to his name.
He and I have been very, very good friends, but I don't know anything about when he was terminated way back at the station.
But, you know, it wasn't turned down.
It wasn't very good.
I'm not so sure.
No, no, I think that he's great about us.
We've done it.
We've written a lot.
The only good thing about him, actually, I like him.
I'm glad to see him again.
So it's not good in general.
It's good for us internally.
I think we have a question.
I have a policy statement.
I would help you.
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He found no information.
and getting us a little bit more active, inviting everybody to walk out of that house.
Now, it is also a fact that, as we've already testified, that there is no use for cigarettes, or that's nothing for me.
Well, that's probably because the religion is asking you to love the religion of the people of the world.
Apparently he made some checks, and it was not considered a serious problem.
The checks he got, so he kind of had to accept the money.
Now, there have been stories that fans, instead of coming to catch, that is, contrary to what happened, although they did, they totally stand back in.
And he was an innocent, innocently drawn in, who was added to come up to the customer's office, and he was asked, is cash all right?
And he said, I don't know, let me call and check, and they said, okay, just call us back and tell us if cash is all right.
He called more and more, and I don't care whether it's cash or check.
So his brother got out, and he didn't think it was a cash or check.
That's all he said, and that's where the figure comes in.
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I, the last report I had is that he was trying to get out, and he was in a bad, bad deal, and he was...
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And I think that's all I have for that answer.
It says, oh, I just don't understand what you're talking about.
I just don't understand what you're talking about.
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I used to debate with Rehnquist about this.
Rehnquist's basic hearing was not as much separating the powers.
In fact, Rehnquist was left with such a turnaround.
He argued more on the need for the immediacy of the staff for being on call at any time for the president.
It was one of the reasons they couldn't go out and hear.
I always thought that was the reason.
They argued for the separating of the powers to be stronger.
The question is parallel to the case that makes one report us at that source.
The fact is that it is an inhibition.
If I knew that I had something up there to talk about this conversation, I'd be very much more excited.
I feel like I could say what I feel out of my mind.
And that's a very sound.
I don't even know... You mean the answer I was born on?
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Very good spirit.
I don't think they expect a second camera, but if we go to walk right now, I think they probably don't.
I agree with you.
I agree with you.
I agree with you.
I agree with you.
They just thought we'd just cut it off.
One of us, when I got the letter, was surprised that I could get the brain better.
I said, that's the way to get it to stand up right.
It's not secret that I could get at least the time to say, we'll dump the weapon that we had locked.
I had to go to Harvard, and I had to be bussing, and I had to be buying.
I had to go to Harvard, and I had to be buying.
At least they better test the United States.
Everybody in the United States.
Everybody in the United States.
Not just the United States.
At the highest level, at any time, we have to ask for assistance.
We have to ask for assistance.
There would be no cooperation whatever.
We didn't get caught up in a brawl fight.
We didn't get the summary of the investigation.
We got a blank wall.
And then, as a matter of fact, when we broke the case, we were able to have the competition just a little bit changed.
Even after the death of the people, we got up to the back of the ground, and we had to go out and kill them.
What we did was,
They are burning stones in the glass house up there.
And I thought that maybe there ought to be a couple stories in these tubes.
But down in Frankston, it's not that we have anything.
It's just like this when they get out.
Down in Frankston, they're walking through a ferry track.
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Very hard to get, as I see right now, to get anybody to play our side.
We have to really work on the first one.
Okay.
I feel better.
It's going to be a long time.
It's going to be there going to go on and on.
I don't see them.
I think what it really gets down to, as I said earlier, is that our democratic practice is void of good issues.
So they've got to have this.
Okay, we'll see you later.
See you later.

Nixon, Moore & Dean on Watergate and Executive Privilege

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 14, 1973

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