tonight is the right time to look back at a key piece of reporting by the washington post during their investigation of the watergate scandal that brought down president nixon. and this piece of reporting was disputed by the nixon white house and used by the nixon white house to try to discredit all reporting on the nixon scandals, because this reporting was proved to be wrong. at least in part. bob woodward and carl bernstein became two of the most respected journalists in history because of their reporting on watergate. but they once got a key fact wrong in one story, and it led to an attack from nixon white house. in october 1972, they published a piece reporting that richard nixon s white house chief of staff, hr haldeman, was one of five authorized to approve payments from a secret nixon
to an attack from nixon white house. in october 1972, they published a piece reporting that richard nixon s white house chief of staff, hr haldeman was one of five authorized to approve payments from a secret nixon campaign cash fund. according to their report, the fund had been used for payments to the men who burglarized the democratic national committee headquarters. the report attributed its information to, quote, federal investigators and accounts of sworn testimony before the watergate grand jury. and the sourcing was incorrect. as carl bernstein later explained on mpr. we had the story right, the substance of it. what we had wrong was the attribution. it had never come before a grand jury and the substance was important. and at the same time, we had not
you hate to speculate, but you also have trouble believing that the general, who i think is regarded as impressive, wouldn t have taken the job without the authority to do it? he was in a job that he was succeeding at. the stats were going his way, the department of homeland security. he fell on his sword at the beginning. he was the one who went out in front of the press and said, i can do better, and did. so i do think there was this loyalty factor. and we ll see if the authority falls in. just one historical context here. in 1973, president nixon turned to al hague to become chief of staff when hr haldeman was
so-called smoking gun tape between hr haldeman and richard nixon was their agreement to pretend to use the cia to stop the investigation of the watergate break-in. this conversation was president trump saying to director comey, stop the investigation of michael flynn. it s the use of presidential power to stop an fbi investigation for an improper purpose. jeff, can i ask you a question about this? there was a crime, everybody knew there was a crime. there was a break-in at the watergate. do we know that flynn has committed a crime? by no means. that s my question, i m not a lawyer. if he hasn t committed a crime, does that make it a weaker case? not under the statute. and another question that i think a lot of people have is, well, if he didn t successfully obstruct justice, is it obstruction of justice? because after all, the president did not stop the fbi
i would say much like hr haldeman kept voluminous notes of every conversation with the president, critical in the watergate case. from everything i ve heard, comey had a habit, a practice of recording things. and, of course, as an fbi agent, all fbi agents are trained to record contemporaneously everything they hear and to write it down as exactly as they can. so, i truly believe that if we get a copy of this memo, i m assuming that it s true that there is one, i think it will be very important evidence to be used as, of course, the president threatened that there were tapes. it would certainly be interesting, i d love to hear those tapes, and i hope that they will be subpoenaed and will be provided if they actually exist instead of being something the president was just boasting