Grandfather. [applause] he founded the store known as book row just around the corner from here a he defied the odds by surviving were all other 48 bookstores were shuttered it was then passed on to my late father to go to the store or to scale and popularity he never that was possible. Now im the owner they said its hard to run the store in this digital age. I want to thank youou to the book Loving Community and this audience for helping us not only survive but thrive through the ages. [applause] it is impossible to read tonights book watergate girl without drawing a parallelel to todays headlines at the cross roads of the watergatecandal there was a young lawyer barely 30 years old and the only woman on the team to prosecute the highest ranking white house official. A failing marriage losing her house and privacy invaded she fought against the sexist preconceptions to receive the respect afforded to the fale counterparts tonighthts author is msnbc legal and is beginning her career as an organized prosecutor at Us Department of justice she also served as general counsel to the u. S. Army solicitor general and Deputy Attorney general of the state of illinois coo of the American Bar Association the first woman to hold these positions in conversation tonight is maia a nationally renowned expert on Racial Justice and equity has litigated and lobbied the us congress and developed programs to transform structural races in the us and south africa. Currently a University Professor at the nearby University Also a legal alyst for nbc news and msnbc i also want to think those in the audience for being in the audience and a big shout out to cspan for being here tonight. [applause] so please join me to welcome to pioneering women jill and maia and the water great on watergate girls to the stageg. [applause] thank you. Good evening nikki for being here. I am so excited to be in this conversation with jill who is my sisterinlaw. [applause] that isnt literal in case anybody got excited. In spirit because i hope you all have purchase the book if you havent, you will. I just want to start with the why you wrote it. I dont mean stories but why did you write it . Jill let me know recently she started in 2008 in case you thought she just started it because of donald trump. I did. I started when i i knew i would be retired. I have failed at retirement but i retired on friday to go toto italy so are landing tomorrow and are not here tonight and theyve said we always said yoyou should write a book what is your excuse now . You said you were too busy i ran n out of excuses so i started to write a book. So then i dropped it the agent had a different vision and then i had i wrote it to those specifications and then luckily i found one that said the focus is wrong i refocused the rock focus he wanted it to be all about the hurdles i had overcome like in todays high heels one of f the hurdles women face. He had me write a whole chapter just summarizing my personalal journey. I thought it would be woven into the story but not be the story he thought it would be the story publishers came back to say if it was more about watergate we like to publish it she writes well but not all about the personal stuff. So it never got published i was lucky enough to get on msnbc i spoke to him again may be different now that i have a platform we just didnt go forwrward and then my lawye lawywyer, steve are you here . Introduced me to flip he agreed and it got rewritten and p paul . My editor that is the best thing that ever happened he got the story he said you may not want to do this because he is a man that he got the story and asked me the most interesting question. Where do you see your book on a bookshelf . I said i understand the question. What do you think it should be near . I said catherine grahams biography. I love that book he said something more modern the book unbelievable because it capture the era and the campaign and her very unique and interesting back story. No wrong answer but i see it as a combination of all the president s men and hidden figures. He gets it. He really gets it i tried to keep that in mind as i selected stories i can tell you there are hundredsf stories and examples that are not included i tried to get the ones t that personify the investigation and theruth what it was likike to be the only woman in the room i want to start with that because when you read this book is the intertwined personal narrative around this critical. Inur history and legal work central to protecting our constitution. We both went to columbia law school. [applause] you were one of 15 women and when i went we were close to 50 percent of the law school. Nobody said to you somebody will die in vietnam because you to their rightful place in the class and you are keeping them from getting a deferment and you will never practice law. Why are you here. I definitely did not get that. And thats why im not in prison right now. [laughter] those constant challenges and then you end up in the department of justice you are they are doing very serious cases i love you to talk a little bit about getting to the department of justice because originally you are going to be a journalist and then you end up in the department of justice which is how you end up on the watergate team but then the only woman so tell us about traveling that path at a time women were not. I staed law school becae the jobs offered to girls the title i did not invent it when i first heardrd it i didnt say i like the word girl but then my editor pointed out how many others have the word girl. [laughter] also thats not a bad ea but it capture the era. We were all called girls. So not a bad title i was offered jobs as a journalist i did not want to do social events. Ok in college and i remember reading on the back jacket he went to harvard law school. So i r ridiculously assumed if he went is a great writer would help me and editors would take me more seriously for journalism job so i applied to law school i also checked the law boards on a flute i go to graduate School Journalism that is how i ended up in law school and after my first year i thought there has to be a better way to get a job in journalism. I hated law school if you dont want to be a lawyerr the first year is bad enough even if you want to be but if not it is torture so i took a leave of absence and got a job at the assembly of captive european nations and organization of all former leaders of captive soviet countries lithuania and romania which i now know from research the cia sponsored but i did not know that until researching my book. Sorry no politics of that nature. Dt tell that to bernie sanders. I took the year off to decide i hated leaving anything undone if i start the book i have to finish it. Now at this stage if i dt like a movie i do walk out i went back to law school and i had done very well i was in the National Competition the second year and i like that and then trial practice i did pretty well maybe i should pay back Student Loans and get a job in trial practice. I was lucky enough, networking. Networking is so important. When you read the book you will see my first husband did not fare so well. But there are a few good things i could say one is that his sister went to brown and came to visit us were was forced to move while he was studying for the bar exam i decided i want to get. Studying for the new york ba bar, you can see the type of marriage that i had he was in the New York Times section. He said give me your resume. Mob bosses. Prosecuting mob bosses. [laughter] but thats the reason they gave why i ended up doing appeals they all start the appeal which is a great thing so finally i had to figure out is the only woman what to do then went to see the big big box of the organized crime section who played a role in two watergate and they said henry, how come the guys are trying cases and im doing appeals . He said he would be much more vulnerable in the courtroom in appeals is just lawyers but then you be meeting with the members of the mafia. I said you didt notice m my specs when you hired me . He said i dont know. Thats how i got my first trial but it was in alalaska. [laughter] they figured it was far enough away and safe enough that i could not wear pants to court. Totally verboten. Thirty below zero and they. But you actually have to advocate for yourself is your point but then tell us how you get on to the watergate team your already the only one trying mob cases so when it started we didnt know it would turn out to be but it was. Do you remember billy gate . Something about beer and jimmy carters brother. We could have been that. We didnt know but ive been injustice long enough i felelt if i leave i can go to private practice and if i dont not so much a personal risk but career risk the head of the organized crime section and one of the smartest lawyers in history the country and it being bill clintons white House Counsel to the impeachment and hes the one i went to alaska with by the way who said i hava trial i want you to second chair. He was my mentor and hired by waterge special prosecutor and gave my name to them they called me in for the interview one ofof the strangest i ever had i walk into the office he said when he ready to start . I said right now he said start the job and said youre not going to ask many questions . Checked out your record we want you to start so that was my job interview. I said i need at least a month to wrap up my cases you are saying that to be polite you can start tomorrowow. I literally worked two jobs the first two weeks trying to wrap up my cas and start at the office. Thats how it happened. You are not only. Its a fairly short record and with organized crime so one of the things so here you are it does become clear this is a big deal pretty quicklyly. Or at least have that potential statement by the time i started one of the burglars but also a security chief to reelect the president known as creep had written a letter you are right. You lied other people lied. Hush money was taken so that letter was public by the time archie was hired is clear not a thirdrate burglary but it was a political crime so we knew we were into something big. Host you know it will be important and a ton of pressure on you in addition because you are the only woman so the woman who cannot fail because you cant fail other women in the future. If anybody has an olderr sister then you know you have to do it right or your younger sister didnt get to do it. Thats just how it was my proudest moment as the first woman to be general counsel my successor was a wom. Okay i didnt mess it up. Obviously did not mess up watergate either but one of the things that happened we will get back to the husband the second husband is good the first not so much what you described in the book is how emotionally and psychologically abusive your husband is at a time when you are carrying n only a critically important case for the country but huge personal pressure youre putting on yourself to be successful for other women. How did you navigate that there are parts where you talk about having doubts and wondering about yourself to push and propel yourself forward. That is hard enough that the person you go home to at night take you down constantly, how tt quick. A very good at compartmentalizing and suppressing. That was my survival technique. I put it aside. Beuse it was such a bad marriage i did not want to be at home. So i worked really hard is something extra needed to be done i volunteered. Is happy to do it if i was mamarried to michael banks, my third husband i dont know i would have done that. I like being witith him i dont feel belittled by him and part of the reason i stayed in the bad marriage and part of the reason i share this story is because i think im not alone that there are so many women who blame themselves and in my era it was my fault and my power to fix that i believed i was responsible for fixing it kept trying until l i finally got a go therapist the first time i saw him he said this is not your problem and it tooook me three years of seeing h before i was even willing to confront my husband how he treated me and all my friends saw what was happening and not once said anything to me because they were afraid that i would turn against them. I understand that i wouldve done the same thing maybe. But i thought people would be shocked when we were separating. Everybody said thank god we dont know how you statay that long [laughter] there was one exchange i have in the book my last day in washington before i move to be with michael one of the questions was we saw how he treated you during watergate they would try to find reasons to exclude spouses and he wouldnt be at events they did not want him around obviously it was stressful and terrible im not sure i took the right approach butut it was what i di. Host what comes up in the book is that youre the only woman on the prosecutor side but then the only woman on nixon side. So talk about her and you actually have sympathy for her. I do now and i did a little bit then. But wasnt as in my intellect as it is now. Host i love you to tell everyone the importance of how important she became to the case and how you became the prosecutor questioning her and best watergate wide open. First, it was a significant turning point for the case it really turned the American Public against nixon he 149 states and a huge landside with the popular vote he was a very popular president and did good things passing tie ix, open china, past the epa, he had some good points. He had some moral failures but they were significant but rosemary words would then have been called a secretary really was the advisor you will see in the book i listened to some tapes unrelated to the crime that we used where she is clearly advising him more than just a secretary she was aunt rose. Answering a question i said i reallyly wanted to portray her as her family and friends knew her but nobody would talk to me bob woodward said stop calling people is too easy for them to hang up knock on the door to the washington knocked on the door and it was slammed in my face. [laughter] i gave up and decided i couldnt do it i hired someone who i thought could be a journalist not be that polarizing figure that i appear to be in that didnt work either. I never got that side but wanting to portray her sympathetically or accurately i got a phone call from her grandnephew and he said i will talk to you i would just tell you one of the stotories if youre listening i may havave another part to add to the book the addendum of the story that i got from him and one is he said my mother is the daughter of joe woods the sheriff of cook county and the brother of rosemary words in my mothers younger sister was named rose after rosemary woods i already had an aunt rose so i cannot call heher intros i can have to aunt rose is a you are uncle rose the whole family started to call her uncle rose she had a great sense of humor and thought it was cute and funny and accepted to be called uncle rose the whole time i was interviewing him every set time he says uncle rose. It was a weird circumstance. So you have john dean nobody believes him talking about how important she becomes as a witness to say what john dean is saying about nixon and hush money they dont believe john dean you believe him but have no corroborating evidence. So tell us how she becomes pivotal and how you draw out the lie or the coverup. We found out there were tapes we knew we had to get them because if they corroborated what was testified to we had it made but if they didnt we were dead so halderman said that i could get the Million Dollars he said yes we did not t tell you it would be wrong. There was no but it could be wrong he said i could get the money. We had to get the money on the tapes and corroborate them there was a big hullabaloo most were john dean this is what i said so then the president stonewalled but at the time it was a serious abe and we did not get them and finally Archibald Cox had a p conference october 20th on a saturday to explain why we had a right to the tape and why we needed them the president was very unimpressed and said to the attorney general and said i promise the Senate Unless i had cause theres no cause i not doing it so then he was fired the need duty attorney general said i made the same promise im not doing and he was fired. Although there was a question of he resigned or was fired the third in command was a solicitor general carried out the order that was known as the saturday night massacre. Three days after that the public reaction the outpouring was amazing. We got bags of mail. Huge canvas bags o of postal mail and three days later the president saidd i will appoint a new special prosecutor you can have the tapes than on halloween lawyers went to court one was not recorded it was in a private residence the other one had a tape malfunction he said we will find out what happened and we did it really did look like that was correct. Bad luck for us now weree waiting for seven tapes now the day before thanksgiving and the lawyer said we rgot to tell you theres a third problem one has an 18 a half minute gap where should be the conversation that we subpoenaed the jge said he would have another hearing. In the first hearing figuring out who handled the tapes the right white house was presenting witnesses one was rosemary words because she handled the tapes and by that time there were three of us we turning to nashville with a promise to come back if we succeeded with the indictment he would come back in time for the trial so thatt left too 30 yearolds in charge of the white house we are k known as the childrens march he is an assertive and powerful and persuasive and like me i am ornized and thoughtful we were a great team, but i felt he was taking too many witnesses he only had a couple more Years Experience than me i pulled him out and said im taking the next witness and then we share every other witness the next one called as a chain of custody witness so i q question her life what precautionon she had taken not to erase any of the tapes she was very hostile and nasty to me. So when the white house announced there was is 18 and a half minute gap with no explanation and only rosemary woods could explain it i assumeshe would stay my witness becausyou dont change witnesses in the middle now in the book he claims he was behind question the second time if he was i have no knowledge of it i just prepared from the moment i heard i skipped all the thanksgiving and spent the weekend reading everything i could possibly read about her past testimony there were no computers to get transcripts and underline them when she was called as a criminal suspec i gave the miranda warning for the first time in my life because she was the suspect