Nixon & Ehrlichman on Watergate and Executive Privilege

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The problem is McCord doesn't want to put that through.

I don't know.

I don't think so.

His lawyer tells him, his lawyer is O'Brien.

He's quite a student in this case.

That there is a reasonable degree of probability that he will not be called before the grand jury and voluntarily.

There's nothing in the report.

testimony of the defendants that will in any way implicate him.

And O'Brien is concerned that the minute Dean goes down there, he could have ensured a missing match between Ruder, Mitchell, Dean, and others in the White House, which is not inevitable.

The fact is that you are waiting to play the brains.

Why is this possible?

Is this possible?

You know, you've got to remember.

I must not.

I know, but it's a lot of people besides me here.

We didn't give up whatever we gave up to come here to leave things worse than we found them.

And I don't think there's any one of us that feels that way today.

We ought to be defended at the expense of the president.

Now, let me ask this.

Is there anything that we can do in the way of the statement tomorrow on the beach line that the Senate committee will take the monitor and work on a deal of cooperation?

I can't, and you can't, figure.

There was a press conference today by Weicker.

He pissed on the White House again today.

Ostensibly, he was going to go out and criticize the L.A. Times.

He praised the L.A. Times, and he said that it's really troublesome to him that the evil genius behind this whole thing now sits in the White House at this very moment.

And Bernie's guy who reported this to O'Brien, who in the window was calling him.

Now, both my kids and Gray have contacted one of them and said, what are you talking about?

And he said, well, I'm just drawing on the common knowledge.

And I said, right, I didn't agree.

But he's playing this for every thing he can get out.

Now, that gives us a natural springboard if we want to take it.

We're just getting out of the point.

Do we want to get out of the point?

Do we want to concede to them?

Yes, we have to.

But even without being, in other words, taking the last sentence of our state, maybe that shouldn't be put out tomorrow.

The charges are being made in the proper place.

The charges are being made in innuendo as the criminal act.

Now, the proper place for those charges

Well, let's...

See what that does to Irvin.

Irvin right now is behind that fence.

He's the chairman of the committee that's making a mess of things.

He's got his lawyer running out of the evening.

His brother just died.

I don't know whether that's significant or not, but he's in a relatively weak position.

He may never be there again.

That's a pretty good climate for bargaining.

On the other hand, if we're very feisty and very, all right, let's don't piss on this.

Can anything be said tomorrow?

Lacking the Dean's statement.

Let me say, on the Dean's statement, if Dean feels this way, I don't want to overrule him at this point.

I suppose we're honored to get up and say, I have a number of questions about the availability.

or the affidavit of executive privilege to arrange or receive the defense.

I want to make a clarifying statement.

I want to make a statement.

We never said I could apply.

That's right.

I want to make a definitive statement.

I want a definitive statement on that.

He said, in fact, it should be written now.

That is where any president or former member of the White House

if called before the grand jury to testify in the name with regard to criminal activities or illegal, with regard to illegal activities, that's better said than illegal activities, will cooperate fully with the grand jury

It says, just as we, just as, just as we, just as has been the practice in the past, just as has been the practice in the past, and that there will be no executive privilege with regard to questions which relate to any criminal charge.

... ... ... ... ...

Thank you.

Which I understand is the strong objections of the chairman and some of the members of the committee, the chairman and other members of the committee, and several other members of the committee as well, which I understand.

Chairman, several members of the committee strongly disapprove of that.

But that may be safer.

All right.

Now, I'm going to ask the applicability of executive privilege in the case of a White House staff member, pastor, president, charged with wrongdoing.

Charged with wrongdoing.

I like that.

Wrongdoing is absolutely illegal activity.

I want to make a pretty statement on that subject.

Our greatest statement refers to executive relations.

This statement relates to executive relations.

Here, it has been our policy in this investigation today, and it will continue to be our policy, that any president or former member of the White House Senate or the White House Senate will cooperate with

questions relating to any illegal conduct upon the bar charges of illegal conduct upon the bar

It would be argued that we are, in fact, inviting grand jury attention to the Colson being charged.

Ron, what does this mean?

I'm surprised you're delivering John Dean to the grand jury.

All right.

Now let's see what our option is.

Our option is to wait until you try to work a deal out of it very quickly.

Either that or to wait until the seven defendants are finished testifying.

And then depend on inside information to indicate whether or not Dean is likely to be caught and if he has jumped ahead in the whole theory, which is what he's arguing for.

We're going to do that.

I'm not going to throw Dean on this example.

As a matter of fact, I go right to throw Dean up there without throwing Colson up, too.

This may be seen as throwing a bullet.

And maybe the prudent thing to do is make no statement at all that's going to pass the opportunity, or to make some statement supportive of Mitchell, if you want to do that.

The most exhaustive FBI, the most exhaustive branch of

resulted in no charges against any past or present member of the White House staff, we continue to be alert to these charges.

And we have gone the extra mile to try and find out what lies behind them.

Because certainly the president's the last person in the country who would want a person on the White House staff to default.

Well, I want to even, if he could not statement

I want some statement to be made that indicates, you know, that a lot of people forget what I've said, right?

I mean, a statement could just be made now.

In fact, that would be goddamn helpful.

And I'll call you and say, if anybody's got any evidence, we want to know about it.

If there's any evidence.

So far, there has been none.

If there's any hard evidence, we...

What do we want to know?

We have to ride that through with the Congress as well.

You ride that through.

You make a deal with the Congress.

That's right.

But you reiterate the fact that nobody has advanced enhancements.

Can he say anything tomorrow?

Rather than trying to defend Mitchell and the President, the President defends the people that are under attack.

Everybody says, well, God damn it.

Why doesn't he testify?

on the other hand is still battling he's just provided a whole lot of

a rigorous investigation had taken place and so on and so on.

And Eastland told him that he could get him out of the committee and table.

And that he'd be tabled until after the completion of the urban site investigation.

At this very time, he was great.

He wants to stay on.

Now, he's kind of curious about this.

He says, I think the president's got to consider who he wants to have holding the levers of power of the FBI during the urban select committee hearings.

And he said, he's certainly better off with a friend like me than he is with some stranger coming in there trying to get control of things.

Now, that all translates to me into, if I leave there,

If somebody gets into that attic, they're going to find stuff that they wouldn't find if I stayed there.

Now, I said that to Pat, look, and Bill went through the options, four options, table and kill, table and per year, or whatever, through the end of the bank, pass or defeat.

And I said, I think the President's going to have a crack at this, don't you, Pat?

He said, absolutely, he certainly does, and I hope he pulls it.

late before him and soon and, and, uh, let me know his decisions.

Uh, and he's still valid, he's still contriving, uh, he's got, got it working on his confirmations and so forth.

Bill's, uh, Taylor's tells me that, uh, Bernie's moving away from the grave.

Uh, they could get him back on the basis of what the governor, they might get him a bias on that basis.

Um,

two or three others that they could get.

They'll get McClellan and Eastland, and that might be enough to pull it off.

But Bill says, frankly, the way to do this, if the president decides that there ought to be two, is just to relax.

And Eastland's being pressed by Byrd.

He'll bring it on to the committee.

He'll have to do it within a week or so.

If he does, I think we don't have to go to extraordinary lengths like he did.

... ... ...

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Thank you.

Yes.

I think that's what we need.

.

I don't know why.

He's thinking about morality.

He gets splashed.

He says morality.

The Bureau is excellent.

The Bureau is very upset that the innuendo has been slipped.

Well, let me say this.

Let's go back to the previous.

Let's go right.

Dean is a guy who takes his advice.

And that's what I heard about him.

He can't get together with people.

He was like a hermit.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

.

They say, you know, if you've been around the courthouse very much, this kind of thing is commonplace after major criminal trials.

Frequently, I have a criminal defendant who comes in and either says he was framed or says that perjury convicted him of one thing or another.

This happens to be more of an authority's case, but it's not a legal case.

And I think perhaps we're going to get some advantage out of it.

Let me say that I think part of the PR thing could be an attack on the court.

I think it has to be.

I don't want to inform her.

That's the only other issue is the conflict, huh?

Well, the issue is what?

So that we're sure everything's out.

Correct.

And then, I think he's got to be correct.

I remember how the anti-discovery destroyed Chambers.

Yeah.

Yeah, Chambers destroyed his.

But Chambers never recovered him.

No.

This could be done here.

Of course.

He's taken this.

He's not being.

Well, getting back to this thing, John, that you see nothing that we can do on the offensive side tomorrow.

Well,

No, I think we could clarify the executive privilege thing.

Now, the other thing we might do is simply clarify the executive privilege thing generally with a statement that says the operative phrases are cooperated and disclosed.

And let's ever go back over the same ground and indicate that rather than doing that,

over the ground.

It ought to be somebody else working on it.

And prepared for it.

I'd like to get in a statement that we put out on executive order indicating, again, we will cooperate.

You could say there that we'll cooperate in the grand jury.

Does that invite you much?

I agree it don't invite

I think that's better, that's softer, to say we'll cooperate with the grand jury without saying specifically White House staffers' terms.

We will cooperate with the grand jury, we will cooperate with the urban committee on furnishing all relevant information under... You can lead into it, down the swipe of the committee, by saying how sensational, what a corroborated charge, and so on and so on.

I've been asked about the application of executive approval in the light of...

Yes, and then you could state the purpose of executive privilege is not to cover up wrongdoing or illegal activities upon the part of any member of the White House staff.

That is why we are in full cooperation throughout this investigation with the FBI and with the rank jury.

And there will continue to be full cooperation.

with the FBI with regard to any charges as to the legal activities.

Then I would say, as far as the committee is concerned, the position of, we have indicated that we will cooperate fully with the committee, the board of committee, but we have simply laid out

formal, league-like committee session, to put it that way.

We have always stood ready to work out, to work out with the committee a satisfactory method by which the committee can get all the facts through the committee and, like I was saying, can question members of the White House back.

on any relevant information.

I think if you could get something like that out, and he could say, I think that there seems to have been, and this is not a clarifying statement, this is one that simply, that there has been, there has been a, apparently because it's a very complicated issue,

There's been a very massive misinterpretation.

My question is the second.

Our purpose is not to cover up.

The purpose of the executive privilege is not to cover up.

The president wants to

has directed that all members of the White House fully cooperate with investigative agencies in getting to the bottom of any charges regarding illegal activity.

We have done so today.

And we will do so with not only the director, but with the Senate committee.

As far as the Senate committee is concerned, we will not participate

We do not think that's the view of conduct, which the chairman and other members of the committee have been taught in this past week.

We do not believe that we believe that this situation is not cooperating with Congress.

No, no, that's not the outcome.

I was in the Senate, a part of the Senate committee is in the Senate.

I would put it in the moment.

We will cooperate.

We will cooperate there.

We are ready at this time to work out with the chairman of the committee and the members of the committee a satisfactory amendment.

It's a satisfactory amendment where they can all, where members of the White House can be questioned fully and will purge information with regard to

Thank you.

Then, may I say, if you do that, then I would grow it.

I'd carry that, I'd get this Timmons and these people up there, and I know they would work hard for their own.

So, that's the go-go guy.

The greater the law, don't we?

What you need is to get Rudy and Timmons and a whole bunch, and everybody in the right, your office, Ken, Cole, everybody that's getting there, to get this the hell up to the leaders, who are, who are values,

and so forth, and I don't know what the question is.

In other words, it's there that you've got to bring the vote.

Also, the Rudy Bunch should get it to Dick Wilson and the columnists that have been eating their ass out for it.

But the lead of that will be, White House ready to work out a cooperation with their internet.

And as an L.A., we may be authorized to do so, or will be.

Let us suppose

I hope it was true.

The premise is that McCord's answers will be needed to be so lightweight that they won't achieve the necessary quality.

In other words, McCord will have to pay them to come through with the quantitative quality.

That's right.

this

They either do or they don't have any higher ups.

What would they call it?

They might call it a murder dimension.

And if they did, we're eventually going to settle in there and just say the same things they said before.

It's a grand jury, the same people.

Well, PR-wise, it might raise problems.

We may still have it.

We haven't yet.

Well, that's his point.

There's no guarantee of this.

The probabilities are at least substantial enough to play it.

Well, the other thing that .

I'll talk to you at the end of the morning, as I promised you I would.

And at that time, I also asked .

Thank you.

Nixon & Ehrlichman on Watergate and Executive Privilege

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 29, 1973

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Nixon & Ehrlichman on Watergate and Executive Privilege

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 29, 1973

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