Want to watch them in their entirety, visit our website booktv. Org. Ocess our archives by using the search box at the top of the page and search the economy in books. Good evening, everyone. Im so gladt. Youre here today. Im going to say a few words about this before i welcome tonights guest. For a moment of history, it was found 93 years ago by my grandfather, benjamin. [applause] he founded the store in the area known as grow along 4000 around the corner from here. Theres a storm of the depression and he fired the altar by surviving all the other 48 book stores. The store was passed on to my father who grew the store through popularity, he never thought it was possible. Now i am the owner and critics set as a woman, it is going to be hard to front the store and i get wiped out by this digital age. So i want to thank you in the book Loving Community in this audience for helping us not only survive but thrive through the ages. [applause] it is impossible to read tonight book, watergate girl without drawing parallels to todays headline. The crossroads of the watergate scandal and the Womens Movement stood a young lawyer barely 30 heres old and hit the only woman on this team that prosecuted the highest ranking superficial, missed a failing marriage, having her house robbed and privacy invaded, she brought against the sexist preconception to receive the respect according to corded to her female counterparts. Tonight author, jill quine thanks is an msnbc legal analyst who began her career as an organized crime prosecutor as the u. S. Department of justice. D ues also served as general counsel of the u. S. Army, solicitor general and Deputy Attorney general of the state of illinois. Shes operating off the american bar association, the first woman to hold these positions in each role. In conversation with joe tonig tonights smile widely, nationally renowned expert on Racial Justice and equity. She has litigated lobbies, the u. S. Congress developed programs to transform Structural Racism in the u. S. And south africa. Maia is currently a University Professor at the nearby school university. She is also a legal analyst for nbc news and msnbc. I also want to think brody for being in the audience, wonderful agent. I want to give a shout out to cspan for being here tonight. [applause] without further ado, please join me in welcoming pioneering wom women, jill quine banks and maia wiley in the watergate girls to the stand. [applause] thank you and good evening. Thank you for being here. I am so excited to be in this conversation with joe whos my sisterinlaw. [applause] yes, she is. Okay, that is not literally. But in spirit. It is such a pleasure to read this book and i hope you all have purchased this and if you havent, you will. I just wanted to start with the why you product. I dont mean the y in the sense of its an important set of stories but why did you write it . Jill let me know recently she started it in 2008 in case you thought she just started it00 because of donald trump. [laughter] i did, i started in 2008 when i theoretically retired. Obviously i feel that retirement but i flew from retiring friday to italy to be with good friend who unfortunately are flying back into landing tomorrow so they arent here tonight. They said, weve always said you should write a book. What is your excuse now . Boy said you are too busy. I had run out of excuses. So i started writing a book. Then i sort of dropped it, i got an agent who had a different vision for the book that i had and i rewrote it to his specifications and i was lucky enough for his book. In the middle of the room there, agreed with me that the focus was wrong and i refocused it. Was the wrong focus . He wanted it to be all about the hurdles i had overcome. High heels is todayss pin. The hurdles womens face. He had me write a whole chapter summarizing my personal journey. I thought it would be woven into the story if he thought it would be the story. Publishers came back saying if it is more about watergate, we would like to publish this. But not all about this personal stuff. So he never got published and then i was lucky enough to get on msnbc and i spoke to him again saying maybe its different now that i have a platform and we just didnt go forward with it. Then my lawyer, shepherd are you here . Over there. Introduced me to flip and he agreed and he got re written and paul, where are you . Paul, my editor whos the best think that ever happened, just wonderful. He really got the story, i can tell you you may not want to do this because hes a man. He may not get the story but paul got the story. He asked me the most interesting question, he said where you seek your book on bookshelf . I said i dont understand the question. He said, i mean, what book do you think it should be like . Except captain grahams biography, i love that book. He said anything more modern . [laughter] i said katie first book, unbelievable. It captured the era, the campaign that captured her unique and interesting back story. He said thats a good answer, no wrong answer but i see this is a combination of all the president men and hidden figures. The minute he said hidden figures, i went oh yes. Hes desperate. I tried to keep that in mind as i selected stories because i can tell you there are hundreds of hundreds of stories and examples of stories that arent included in the books but i tried to get the ones that personified that combination of the investigati investigation, getting the truth but also what it was like to be the only woman in the rope. How to start with the only woman in the room because, when you read this book, it really is this intertwined personal narrative around this really critical. In our history an important legal work that was central to protecting our constitution and one of the things that struck me we both went to columbia law school. But there were only six, you know. [cheering] but when you went, you were one of 15 women in the entire law school, which is in the book and when i quit, we were about 50 , close to 50 of the locks. Nobody said to you someone will die in vietnam because youb took their rightful place in the kclass and your keeping them fm getting it. Besides, you will never practice law so why are youou here . I definitely did not get that and thats why im not in prison right now. [laughter] and thank you for not murdering anyone but those kinds of constant challenges, and then hugo, you end up in the department of justice into arthur doing very serious cases, i would love for you to talk about getting to the department of justice because you originally were going to be paternalist and then you end up in the department of justice which is how you end up on the watergate team but in all of those things, the only woman. Can you just tell us about traveling that path at a time when women were not traveling . I started law school because jobs offered to girls and let me just say the titles not one i infected when i first heard i ii went girl . Im not having a book with the name in it. Then my editor pointed out how many best sellers have the word girl and it and i thought well, maybe its not a bad idea but also because it captures the era. I was called a girl, we were all called girl. It seems like a bad title but i was offered jobs on what was then a womans page is a journalist. I wanted to do it, i didnt want to report on social event so i read a book in college called gideons trumpet by Anthony Lewis of the New York Times and i remembered reading on the back jacket that he hadad gone to harvard possible. I ridiculously assumed that he went and was quite writer and it would help me. The editors would take me more seriously a journalism job so i applied to law school and also i had taken the lawaw words on a fluke in my junior year end i had never taken the graduate record exam so i couldnt go to graduate school in journalism so thats how i ended up in law school. After my first year, i thought there has to be a better way to get a job in journalism. I hated law school and if you dont want to be a lawyer, the first year is not, enough even f you want to be a lawyer but if you dont, it is torture. So i took a leave of absence and i got a job at the assembly of european nation, an Organization Called all the former leaders of what were then soviet countries, romania, etc. Which i now know from research for my book with the cia so i was a cia, which i didnt know until researching my book. [laughter] like me a lot better. [laughter] sorry. I am running as a biden delegate. Ea [applause] so i took the year off and scided i hated leaving anything undone, i start about, i have to finish it. I dont like a, movie, i do walk out. But anyway, i went back to possible and i had done very well the first year so i was in the National Competition the second year and i sort of liked that and then i did pretty well practice so i thought well, maybe i should pay back my Student Loans and i should get a job in practice and i was walking up and this is the seat of my life, networking. Its so important, when you read the book, you will see my first husband didnt fare so well. There are a few good things i could say, one of them was at his sister went to brown and visited us when we moved to washington i was forced to move while studying for the barr exam and came home and said i decided i wanted to get a job at the fcc, we are moving to washington. I accepted a job in new york, setting for the barr, so you get the picture of what kind of marriage i had. But she came to visit us and wanted to see her t best friend from brown, Jerry Mcdowell and he invited my first husband andi myself to dinner and he happened to be in the time section, somebody heard i was looking for a job, he said give me your resume, what . Boxes, happens to end up prosecuting mob bosses. But that was the reason they gave her why i ended up doing it, all lawyers in new york start in appeals which is a great thing because you see mistakes trial lawyers and ultimately, you dont make those mistakes. So finally, i had to figure out as an only woman, there is nobody i could ask what to do and i went to the big boss who ended up playing the role in watergate, we can talk about that later. I said so henry, how can the guys are trying cases and im still doing appeals . He said well, you are a girl and you would be much more vulnerable in the courtroom. In appeals, its just lawyers. The court room, would be with members of the mafia. So i said, you didnt notice my sex when you hired me . He said well, i dont know. Anyway, thats how i got my first trial but it was in alaska, i was far enough away and safe enough and let me just say that i could not wear pants after court, so im in 30. 0 alaska, there using flannel lined pants and im wearing a skirt. A woman there. But you get, you had to advocate for yourself. But then you got trials but now tell us how you get onto the watergate team. Youre already the only woman doing, trying these mob cases which is no joke. But then, one of the most sensitive politically explosive important historic investigations, early in the history of the nation, how does that happen . Festival, when it started, we didnt know it would turn out to be what was, it couldve been, anybody remember delegate . I dont even remember something about your jimmy carters brother, it couldve been that. We didnt know but i had been a justice for long enough that i felt so if i leave, i can go to private practice and if i dont leave, i wont be able to go into private practice because if you stay too long, law firms think youre too experienced and they wont hire you. It didnt seemed like that career l risk and high mentor, charles was the headhe of the organized crime section, and one of the, smartest lawyers in the history of the country, handicapping bill clintons white House Counsel during the impeachment and he was the one i went to alaska with by the way, he was the one who said yes, i have a trial and i want you as secretary. Heres my mentor, brilliant and fabulous. He was hired by the special prosecutor and gave my name to them and they called me in for an interview it was i one of the strangest interviews ive ever had. I walked into the office of jim who had come from harvard cox and he said when you ready to start . I said well, right now. He said no, start the m job. I said dont you have he said he wants me to start. Because my job interview. Is it i need at least a month and he said if youre sank back es be polite, he says we can clear it and you can start tomorrow. Ive been really worked two jobs for the first two weeks i was there trying to wrap up my cases and start at the watergate office. One of the things youre not only the only n woman, they had already decided they were going to hire you because of your record. Is a fairly short record and a lot of you were very young. But one of the things i wanted to get, so here you are, it has become clear this is an important big deal pretty quickly. Or at least have potential to be. By the time i started, mccord burglars but also for security to for the committee to reelect the president , and i wont call that from now had written a letter saying you are right. All the pressure you put on, you are right, we lied, other poli polite, hush money was paid to keep us quiet so was public by the time he was hired is pretty. This is not a third appraisal regularly, it wasnt political crime. So you could merge into something for. One of the things saint in the book, you know it is going to be important, you know its a kind of pressure and external pressure on you in additionit because youre the only woman that the pressure think the orman cannot fail. Second husband is good first has been not so much. One of the things you describe in the book is how emotionally and psychologically abusive your husbandal is and add the time when you carry not only the critically important case for the country but the pressure that you put on yourself. How did you navigate that . There are parts of the book where you talk about and wondering about your self. That is hard enough in High Pressure and high stress situations to the person you go home to at night taking you down a pay constantly how do you manage that quick. To be very good at compartmentalizing and that was my survival technique. I just put it aside. It was such a bad marriage i didnt want to be at home. I work really hard is something extra needed to be done i volunteered and was perfectly happy to do it. If i was married to Michael Banks i dont know what i would have done i like to be with him. Part of the reason i stayed in a bad marriage and part of the reason im sharing thiss story is because i think im not alone people blame themselves and in my era itra was my fault and within the power to fix this. I believe i was responsible for fixingfixi it. And then i got a good therapist who said this is not your problem. And it took me three years of seeing him before i was even willing to confront my husband how he treated me and all my friends on what wasni happening and not one of them said anything to me. Because they thought i would turn against them. I probably wouldve done the same. I am not judging them. But i thought people would be shocked we were separating. They said we dont know how you stay that long. [laughter] this one exchange that i had is in the book richard, my last day in washington before i moved to chicago to marry michael we spent the day walking around. We saw how he treated you and during watergate to find reasons to exclude thousands and we just didnt want him around. Obviously it was stressful andtr terrible im not sure i took the right approach to solving my problem but it was. What is interesting is you are the only woman on the prosecutor side but then the only woman on nixon side. Lets talk about her. I find it interesting. And you do have some sympathy for her. I do now and i did a little bit then. But it wasnt as in my a intellect as it is now. It is important. I would love for you to tell the importance how important she became to the watergate cast and how you became the prosecutor questioning her and essentially bust watergate wide open. It was a significant turning point for the case. It really turn the American Public against the nixon. He won 49 states in a huge landslide of the popular vote. He was a very popular president and did some good things. He passed title ix, open china, past the epa he had some good points maybe some moral failures significant. [laughter] and rosemary words what we then would have called a secretary really was his advisory you will see in the book i actually listened to some tapes unrelated to the crime were really she is advising him clearly more than just a secretary she was and rose to his two daughters. She was close with pat nixon, his wife i will divert for a second i was on fresh air and answering the question i said i really wanted to portray her as her family and friends knew her but nobody would talk to me they said stop calling people is too easy to hang up. Go knock on the door so i knocked on theeded door and it was slammed in my face. [laughter] so i gave up and decided i couldnt do it i hired someone i thought could be a journalist and not a polarizing figure that i appeared to be and that didnt work either. So i never got that side ofof it but i wanted to portray her as accurately as her family and friends knew her i got a phone call from her great her grand nephew and he said i will talk to you. I will tell you just one of the stories because there may be another part to add to the book from the stories that i am getting from him and one is he said my mother is the daughter of joe words the brother of rosemary woods. And my mothers younger sister was named rose after rosemary woods. I already had an aunt rose so i could not call her aunt rose. You are uncle rose so the whole family called her uncle rose and she had a great sense of humor she thought it was cute and funny and she accepted to be called uncle rose i. I talked to him for a couple of hours, every time he said his uncle rose he cannot call her aunt rose. [laughter] it was just a very weird circumstance. To one of the things that you that one that has happened john dean nobody believes john dean and how important she becomes as a witness because they say what john is saying about hush money with nixon is not true so they believe halderman but not john dean but you believe john dean but you have no corroborating evidence and the public leaves halderman. So tell us how she becomes pivotal and how you draw out the lie and the coverup. There are two answers the first thing we found f out that there were tapes and we knew we had to get them because of they corroborated what they have already publicly testified to in the senate, we had it made but if they didnt we were dead if there were anyre inconsistency halderman said that when dean said the p