jim baker ends his analysis of this moment in history by noting that article ii of the impeachment proceedings against richard nixon stated that nixon, quote, knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agency of the executive branch, including the criminal division of the department of justice in disregard of the rule of law and in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. in other words, hey, presidents get impeached for reaching into the justice department to talk to officials there about what s going on in an investigation of a president and his white house. that s the history. that s the precedent. as of today, senator chuck schumer, the top democrat in the senate, has written to the inspector general at the justice department asking if there might be something analogous right now with the mueller investigation.
this is an in-depth historical piece about president richard nixon and the trouble he made for himself when he leaned on officials in his own justice department both to try to influence the course of the watergate investigation, but also specifically to get them to feed him information on the ongoing case. james baker, ex-fbi general counsel now providing an impressive history lesson on how one of the articles of impeachment against nixon was in part about him opening up a back channel of communication with a senior justice department official that was designed to inform him about the inner works of the watergate case. joining us now for the interview is james baker, former general counsel of the fbi and co-author with sarah grant of this fascinating spotlight on this part of history. mr. baker, it s really nice to have you here. i know you don t do things like this often if at all. so it s a real honor to have you on the program. thanks, rachel. first time ever. i promise it will
petersen s future, he was not merely exercising his powers under article ii of the constitution to supervise the executive branch and trying to get the facts necessary to do so. no. the president of the united states was also acting in this instance as a criminal co-conspirator, trying to obstruct lawful investigative activity of the justice department. and that ultimately is the big hairy point here. jim baker, former general counsel of the fbi, after he lays out all of this history from the watergate era, all of this information about contacts during the watergate investigation between the president and a senior official at the justice department who was involved in supervising the investigation, who nixon s pumping for information about the investigation, who he s trying to influence in terms of how the investigation is going, where does that all end up ultimately? what s the bottom line here? what s the end of this story?
nixon and the trouble he made for himself when he leaned on officials in his own justice department both to try to influence the course of the watergate investigation, but also specifically to get them to feed him information on the ongoing case. james baker, ex-fbi general counsel now providing an impressive history lesson on how one of the articles of impeachment against nixon was in part about him opening up a back channel of communication with a senior justice department official that was designed to inform him about the inner works of the watergate case. joining us now for the interview is james baker, former general counsel of the fbi and co-author with sarah grant of this fascinating spotlight on this part of history. mr. baker, it s really nice to have you here. i know you don t do things like this often if at all. so it s a real honor to have you on the program. thanks, rachel. first time ever. i promise it will not be too painful. okay. we ll see, we ll see. i want to
investigation at the time, and in this new article for lawfare, he highlights all the communications between the president nixon and the senior justice department official, where nixon was pumping this justice department official for information. baker says, quote, these documents detail the direct contacts between the president and the top justice department officials responsible for an investigation of his white house and why such contacts were so pernicious and dangerous for all involved. and what jim baker is pointing to here is in fact all available in the historical record. we have the logs of all of the different telephone calls and the individual meetings that the president took personally with henry petersen from the justice department when they were discussing watergate. we ve got the summary of a conversation that nixon had with henry petersen in april 1973 in which nixon asked henry petersen if he had any information implicating the president himself. that s nixon going to