Nixon, Scott & Arends on Watergate and Executive Privilege

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Maybe he had a city club or something.

Maybe he was shopping here, I don't know, in Spain.

Probably in Canada.

Maybe.

I jumped at it because I saw all these freshers and scientists coming up with real hot ideas.

And usually the leadership kills it, but some of these let's not do anything twice, always kill every good idea that comes up.

So we got a full group.

The policy committee supported .

Oh, you were .

I was wondering about .

Well, the main thing is .

Well, I will repeat, if I need to, what I said before, that this turns on whether the president's lawyer can be compelled to discuss his sources of information.

Well, if they get it again, say, but the press, the Trump credit again didn't get it, and you get it all of a sudden.

Excuse this one, but it's a poster for corporate.

There was a story maybe in the, it must be in a later edition, what I was going to say is that the line is that there is a, that you can express, I think you could even say, I mean, for sure, isn't it?

has overlooked, and it's not evidently frankly covered the fact that this administration has cooperated completely with the FBI, completely with the grand jury, and that it is a question of information.

We've offered total cooperation.

You've covered all this before.

That is the case because everybody is going to

There's nobody in the White House who's going to be withheld.

And it's just a question of the means, whether they're going to go up to a television spectacular.

But as far as any questions that are raised, they will be answered.

And there's total cooperation, no intention whatever.

Now, as far as they feel, and then they'll come on and say, but why can't they come down and testify like John Adams?

Well, there's quite a different thing there.

He was directly accused of wrongdoing.

That is the case here.

Dean is a lawyer.

Of course, the Dean case is particularly clear.

I did hold him in the FBI, but I'll also try, of course, to be responsible.

But Dean said, I'll let you all question this.

The question will be, what does that cooperation consist of with the implication

on that part, but we haven't seen that cooperation.

The answer, I take it, is if you, or any of these two, all you have to do is have cooperation.

And cooperation will be good.

They have, they've operated.

You know, I use the analogy, in his case, they had to stick it to them.

Truman, far from cooperating, said no way that he could cooperate.

And they really couldn't.

Truman would be giving me a copy of Earl Brown's on Jim McGrath, the play that they played.

Well, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, Truman, out of the FBI, let him over on the file.

It's crazy.

He wouldn't let the FBI in.

It was an iron curtain, absolutely no cooperation at all.

Now, that's wrong.

On the other side of the coin, to have people go trotting out there as regular witnesses is wrong.

You should also point out that you think Senator Ervin was correct in his recommendation.

It's actually privileged to talk about the traditional, the president's constitutional responsibility to defend separation of powers, that he was correct.

And Senator Irving, when he went up before the Supreme Court, that marked him for the right of an administrative assistant, a senator not to be, you know what I mean?

Or not, if it works for an administrative assistant of a senator, it's going to work for an administrative assistant certainly even more of the president.

not be manhandled at the wrong time.

Can you imagine us, for example, a member of a congressional committee calling in a Mr. Justice Stedlitz's clerk to find out why he was for pornography when they put him in 30 movies or not?

It could happen.

But it shouldn't.

And it's going to happen here.

But the point that I make is that, which Cedric and the rest are trying to get out without any effect.

It is for a much effect.

And I'm trying to get out too.

This is the policy.

We are cooperating fully.

And let's scrape away some of this hypocrisy to the effect we are not cooperating.

We are cooperating.

We have cooperated in the past.

We will cooperate today.

And they are simply insisting upon making their, putting us on a, what do you want, a television spectacular.

We looked up the whole question of how committees.

They can, of course, request the attendance.

They can vote to authorize a subpoena.

The subpoena is attempted to be served.

It's declined.

and then at that point, the Senate gets it.

Then the Senate is asked whether or not it directs, it determines to direct the presence of that person at the ball of the Senate.

Now, there's no rule of the Senate.

We looked that up, and there's no law that we can find.

There's the precedent.

You remember McCracken in 1934, 1936, and some aviation case, and Blaine in 1906 or 7.

So the clear precedents are that you have to get a vote in the Senate.

And that is why I don't think they'll get the vote.

I don't believe they'll get the vote in the Senate, all the reasons.

Well, if you do, of course, then we'll just keep it in the courts for two or three years.

Yes.

And maybe that's just the one, too.

Yes.

Now, I want you particularly, and I think you, yourself, and the rest of us have got to be sure in your own minds that the White House is not covered by anything here.

We're not.

We are going to cooperate if you need any questions.

after you just come down to property tell you everything anybody knows but we're not going to have to go trotting up there the president's house can't go up there and say what are you what does this one do what does that do etc etc he'll answer any questions

That's the grumble among, even among the loyal Republican leadership.

Les and I had the first meeting, we had a joint leadership before coming down here yesterday.

We ran into it plenty, didn't we?

And the feeling is, well, if there's anything down here, for God's sake, let's have it.

That's general.

Anything we can do to disabuse that will be fine.

They're not making the best possible case, I'd say, with all efforts.

With the great regard to everybody involved, I know the problem, no question.

But we are not, any of us, making a full enough case

My God, there isn't anything to conceal.

That's what we need.

I'm afraid God knows how many times he's tried.

I just haven't made it at all.

I agree.

Part of it, but I think maybe we've got to get it to you.

We haven't made it either.

Oh, well, you can call us if you're unresponsive.

If I should be picking up a question, you've got to make sure I keep up.

Now, on the other side, what other positive points would you like to get out today?

Well, I think we all expressed that the administration is engaged in that.

I think it's very important that we're doing it against our friends.

Our friends.

And I think that's the point.

It just shows, you know, all that bullshit about the monitors.

You know, he's the bag man for the Democratic candidates, just like Jerry Ford was, I mean, Bob Wilson.

They hate idiots.

You know that lesson.

You're a publicologist.

Yes, well, I did.

So we're like dairy imports.

I think you might say it's president's move on dairy imports, the president's move on the shops, which involves also our business.

It's the president's move to be enforced and his intention to send out a repeal of the $0.03 a pound

that this is a clear indication that this administration, without regard to the speculators involved, may have strongly supported the administration.

Let's all concentrate on getting and keeping the cause moving.

When you expect results, you can't stand your time.

But the battle is being waged, the battle I have battled, that we declare all out war on the forces that are forcing us to cross the border.

The other point that I would mention is that on the budget side, that however, looking at the long term, that busting this budget,

will have a disastrous effect on the cost of living.

Either that, or it will have a tax increase.

In other words, we're facing a cold factor.

There's no way to increase the various budgetary jobs.

There's no easy way out.

There's no cut-bots.

We're totally down on the cost when we go this and that kind of way.

I'd say it's a strong thing, so much you can't get out of the fence.

I think the main thing is rather than getting involved too much in that, is to say, this first test is on a very difficult hill that's one where the administration has a record of increasing the amount of replication of the habilitation.

The question is whether we should increase more than that.

And under certain circumstances, what we've got to do, what we've got to determine, what the Congress has to determine, whether or not the American people, they should tax the American people for whatever they have on some basis.

Can I say this?

But the $200 million increase is found in several programs.

Overall, throughout the government, there's a $200 million rate increase.

Well, in the programs covered by this.

And the programs covered by this is a $200 million increase in the budget.

I guess that's what you're saying.

But it's a tough one.

But I'm so glad that you're getting some return.

If they could fight this one, it would be... Well, sir, it began with Domenici and Bartlett and by Jim Barclay.

And they worked through Brock and then Brock through me and through Tower.

And that's what amazed me.

The way we got this agreement, we will support...

some vetoes, particularly on appropriations bills, with as strong language as we could write in on authorizations, but less commitment.

We ran in trouble, so we got Javits drafted.

And the one with Javits drafted, if we made a few changes, everybody accepted it.

That brought in people like Aitken, you know?

We've got to get an anonymous vote.

Now, today, we'll have some dissenters, but we should get most of these Republicans on the line.

Get them on this deal.

I would say, look, this is a test.

Let's support this veto.

They cannot pick and choose.

We're trying our level best to get the people right.

Because if they could do it on their side, this would be something.

Well, that would come and bother the Democrats, of course.

But we've got a time.

I don't know if you've got any Democrats.

Without Democrats, we may not get 33 or 34.

But we...

we are pretty sure it succeeded and we think we can go in the range of 2026 and we hope we can get more

That's why it was a partisan issue.

They realized that the budget is a partisan issue.

Sure.

That's a matter of party loyalty.

And our guys have got to realize that.

We've got the votes.

Look, we've got Mark III, Senator of the House, if they would think of those terms.

What other things do you think that follows?

I think that we're quite close to them.

Yeah.

We're fighting, we're fighting a tax increase, and we, we drove down the line.

We had a very good meeting, and there was a man on the street, and we had a fight this night.

We're going to take an all-out battle against the tax increase.

And that shot is a good one to match, right?

The U.S. is really better, and we're going to continue to do much better.

I think you can talk.

I'm worried about it.

But in a free economy, you know it's all the same.

Everybody knows.

The duty, the thing about it is, is it always goes on the down.

My God, let's have a price problem now and not have to keep it out of 1974.

I'm not believing that the administration does what they want, the farmers do what they expect, and so forth.

People are going to be talking about food prices.

It'll be something else, but it won't be food prices.

See my point, guys?

That's why, that's why they freeze now.

I freeze it five minutes.

Then they went on to say, well, all hell's gonna break loose next fall, and the labor guys will come back.

So I don't know.

We were, let me say it.

We're going to do some third addressing, like this stockpile thing.

It's a region only of Malaysians, Bolivians, and a hell of a lot of producers there in this country.

But we're going to hit it.

Now, the lumber thing, it's another thing.

We just, now they might just freeze those down and wash them again after a while.

It's an interesting development.

It's leadership that I haven't seen before.

There's about a dozen people there.

The question arose and got kicked around the room.

Can we be absolutely candid about our concerns with the president?

We very well said we could.

Sure.

I want you to know that they wanted to feel, could they just actually say all the worries they had?

Sure.

I said, by all means, sure you can.

What are you going to do?

Yes.

There's no way somebody has thought that well.

Good luck.

We'll see you.

Thank you.

Can I say that in this business of, in this business of total cooperation, and I mean, this is the best kind of administration, trying to cooperate fully, we have nothing to conceal.

That's all I have to say.

Well, the president has said this.

You see, this administration has nothing to do with it.

You see, the White House has nothing to do with it.

And we are ready to cooperate fully.

And I can't cooperate.

I wish I could cooperate, but I have to cooperate on a basis that does not violate the separation of power.

So I will not do that.

I will not cooperate.

No, I agree with your kind of correct statement.

Yes.

Well, I think you do them very well, Gene.

Nixon, Scott & Arends on Watergate and Executive Privilege

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 20, 1973

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