Reply #37: this is what was needed for nixon to resign [View All]

"Unlike the tape recordings by earlier Presidents, his secret recordings of White House conversations were revealed and subpoenaed and showed details of his complicity in the cover-up. Nixon was named by the grand jury investigating Watergate as "an unindicted co-conspirator" in the Watergate scandal...

The gap, while not conclusive proof of wrong-doing on the part of the President, cast doubt on Nixon's claim that he was unaware of the cover-up at this stage. Although not discovered until several years after he had left office, transcripts of an earlier June 20, 1972 conversation between Nixon and White House Special Counsel Charles Colson clearly show Nixon's early involvement in obstructing justice in the Watergate investigation....

He lost support from some in his own party as well as much popular support after what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre of October 20, 1973, in which his demand that independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox be dismissed, was refused to be carried out by Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who both resigned in protest. The then Solicitor General, the most senior officer remaining at the Department of Justice, Robert Bork, dismissed Cox.....

The House Judiciary Committee controlled by Democrats opened formal and public impeachment hearings against Nixon on May 9, 1974. Despite his efforts, one of the secret recordings, known as the "smoking gun" tape, was released on August 5, 1974, and revealed that Nixon authorized hush money to Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt, and also revealed that Nixon ordered the CIA to tell the FBI to stop investigating certain topics because of "the Bay of Pigs thing." In light of his loss of political support and the near certainty of both his impeachment by the House of Representatives and his probable conviction by the Senate, he resigned on August 9, 1974, after addressing the nation on television the previous evening. He never admitted to criminal wrongdoing, although he later conceded errors of judgment."



this judicial committee has nothing that comes close to this standard. nor does the committee have the time to start proceedings. unless the democrats can find a smoking gun and enough republicans on the committee to force a vote in the house this issue is dead on arrival.