at 257-258 (discussing relationship between impeachment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President)., Today, you are focusing on Volume II of the report. [15] A sharp critic of studying memory in a laboratory setting, Neisser saw "a valuable data trove" in Dean's recall. [37][38], In September 2018, Dean warned against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the United States Supreme Court,[39][40][41] a main concern being that the appointment would result in "the most presidential-powers-friendly court" in modern times. President Nixons direct interference with the Department of Justice, while facially proper under his Article II constitutional powers, was for the improper purpose of obstructing the investigation. The press statement was false. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail . [34], Dean later emerged as a strong critic of Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he was even worse than Nixon. 1 AND 182.). As Watergate broke, Haldeman and John Ehrlichman trusted their bright attorney to control the political fall out after the burglars were arrested, part of which involved him paying them large sums of money. April 6, 1973: White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with federal Watergate prosecutors. Rather I accepted the invitation to appear today because I hope I can give a bit of historical context to the Mueller Report. Dean settled the defamation suit against Colodny and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, on terms that Dean wrote in the book's preface he could not divulge under the conditions of the settlement, other than that "the Deans were satisfied." The day following Flynns resignation, President Trump in a one-on-one Oval Office conversation with Director Comey said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go., WATERGATE: In a like situation, when President Nixon learned of his re-election committees involvement in the Watergate break-in, he instructed his Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, to have the CIA ask the FBI not to go any further into the investigation of the breakin for bogus national security reasons. John W. Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, reflects on the much-anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. He had only a limited attorney-client privilege when interacting with the President and advisors and the privilege belongs to the Office in any event. "A concern . It helped to reshape the public understanding of Watergate.. On February 28, 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his nomination to replace J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. It certainly changed my career path. For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. MUELLER REPORT RE EFFORTS TO CONTROL ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS (PP. And politically, itd just be impossible for, you know, you to do it. In Watergate, the lesson learned was that no person, even the President, was above the law. The burglars' first break-in attempt in late May was successful, but several problems had arisen with poor-quality information from their bugs, and they wanted to photograph more documents. 1976); AND IMPEACHMENT OF RICHARD NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY (WASHINGTON, D.C: GOV. An obstruction of justice conviction prevented the former White House counsel from practicing law in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. VS. HALDEMAN, 559 F.2D 31 (D.C. CIR. MUELLER REPORT RE TERMINATION OF COMEY (PP. Dean's testimony to the Senate the year before implicated Nixon in the Watergate affair. He's penned five books about Watergate and 10 books in total; including his most recent tome, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his Followers. The coverage includes testimony from James McCord and E. Howard Hunt, two of the men arrested for breaking into the Watergate complex; John Dean, White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973, who detailed the extent of the Nixon administration's involvement in the burglary and subsequent cover-up; Chief of Staff H.R. Following my testimony before the Senate in 1973, the American Bar Association began to look anew at its code of legal ethics. Nixon said, And, ah, because these people are playing for keeps, . [1] His family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois, where he attended grade school. Dean's first wife is Karla Ann Hennings, whom he married in 1962. Rep. Collins calls John Dean the 'godfather' of obstruction of justice, John Dean considers Watergate a roadmap for Mueller Report. Was he hard-nosed and tough? Dean's testimony before the House was watched by some 80 million Americans. In many ways the Mueller Report is to President Trump what the so-called Watergate Road Map (officially titled Grand Jury Report and Recommendation Concerning Transmission of Evidence to the House of Representatives) was to President Richard Nixon. (Mitchell would not admit this fact, even privately, for almost a year.) Michael and John dig deep into Watergate, January 6th, and DOJ. In July 1970, he accepted an appointment to serve as counsel to the president, after the previous holder of this post, John Ehrlichman, became the president's chief domestic adviser. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. The words Nixon used were strikingly like those uttered by President Trump. But the litigation gave Dean access to files from the Watergate special prosecution archives, intensifying his expertise, and he entered the pundit class that emerged when cable news expanded in the mid-1990s. The Watergate hearings were produced by the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT), public televisions Washington hub for national news and public affairs programming. After we settled the case, I started agreeing to do television, Dean said. MCGAHNS DILEMMA TESTIFYING BEFORE THIS COMMITTEE. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. Meanwhile, John Dean (Dan Stevens) was reportedly aware of the break-in plans and later tried to cover it all up. The depth of Deans Watergate insights is partly due to a defamation lawsuit he filed against St. Martins Press. untenable at some point. We were in his Executive Office Building office late on a Sunday night when he got up from his chair and walked to the corner of the room and in a stage-whisper asked me, I was wrong to offer clemency to Hunt, wasnt I? I responded, Yes, Mr. President, that would be an obstruction of justice. As I later testified, at the time it struck me his moving across the office and whispering was to keep what he was saying from being picked up by a hidden microphone in the room. They don't know what they're looking at. The case of Dean vs. Liddy was dismissed without prejudice. DEAN: . He chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs Blind Ambition (1976) and Lost Honor (1982). John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. 171-181). Learn how and when to remove this template message, United States House Committee on the Judiciary, 1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-06-25; Part 1 of 6, Impeachment process against Richard Nixon, Master list of Nixon's political opponents, Committee for the Re-Election of the President, The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court, Presentation by Dean and Barry Goldwater, Jr. on, Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, "The Nation: How John Dean Came Center Stage", "1973 Watergate Hearings; 1973-06-25; Part 1 of 6", "Virginia State Bar Attorney Records Search (citing to 12 November 1973 revocation of license following hearing of Disciplinary Board, VSB Docket No. Cognition, 9(1), 122. If it was a county sheriff they wouldnt [stay], Dean said. . Dean a young, highly ambitious, Porsche-driving, tassel-loafer-wearing lawyer when he joined the ultra conservative Nixon minions ended up getting fired in 1973 once it became clear he would implicate the president in the cover-up. Silent Coup alleged that Dean masterminded the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate coverup and that the true aim of the burglaries was to seize information implicating Dean and the former Maureen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiance) in a prostitution ring. DEAN: Thats right. The Mueller Report also refers to corroboration of McGahn as a witness in that he made contemporaneous notes on occasions (e.g., MUELLER RPT, VOL. Dean served as White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. When Dean read that testimony in the summer of 1973 in front of a massive TV audience, he became the face of the Watergate conspiracy for most of America, according to Garrett Graff, author of Watergate: A New History.. [26], His next book, released in 2006, was Conservatives without Conscience, a play on Barry Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. Nixon met with me privately on the evening of April 15, 1973, to try to influence how I would relate the events, particularly our conversation of March 21, 1973, when I warned him of the cancer on the presidency. In the March 21 conversation, I tried to convince him to end the coverup, pointing out that paying hush money and dangling pardons constituted obstruction of justice, and that people were going to go to jail, myself included. Mea Culpa welcomes back a very special guest, John Dean. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) June 27, 2022 05:36 PM. II, PP. In the 1979 TV mini-series Blind Ambition, Dean was played by Martin Sheen. It also prompts the interview subjects to note how the public based their opinions on Watergate on an agreed upon set of facts, a major difference from todays polarized and partisan media landscape. [citation needed], On April 6, Dean hired an attorney and began cooperating with Senate Watergate investigators, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel and participating in cover-up efforts, not disclosing this obvious conflict to Nixon until some time later. Dean married Maureen (Mo) Kane on October 13, 1972. This is based on my count of FBI 302 reports cited in the Mueller Report. Journalists Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Lesley Stahl also offer their recollections on the story that helped make their careers. I never dreamed I would have to live in this bubble, Dean, 83, said in a Zoom interview from his Beverly Hills home. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. 1973, Nixon fired Dean. [17] Dean failed to recall any conversations verbatim, and often failed to recall the gist of conversations correctly. Part of TV News Archive. March 21, 1973: Dean tells Nixon there is a "cancer" on the presidency. Secondly, I believe as an attorney, he has an ethical obligation to testify. Its a fascinating place to see whats going on.. Neisser, U. MUELLER REPORT RE APPOINTMENT/REMOVAL OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL (PP. Dean finally replied, "You're showing you don't know that subject very well." In Starz's new Gaslit, premiering Sunday, central Watergate figure John Dean is played by Dan Stevens. [13] It was alleged[who?] . He said, "It's a nightmare. Granted immunity, Dean laid out in stunning detail and intricacy how the President not only knew . HANSEN: John Dean's testimony would prove to be prophetic - perhaps even self-fulfilling. For high school, he attended Staunton Military Academy with Barry Goldwater Jr., the son of Sen. Barry Goldwater, and became a close friend of the family. Well, John Dean has a new book. In June 1973, John Wesley Dean III, former White House counsel under President Richard Nixon, transfixed the nation with his one week of testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee chaired by . And if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. He could be embarrassed. He studied at Colgate University and the College of Wooster in Ohio before earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) For those of you who lived through Watergate, his name is synonymous with the political intrigue of the 1970s. Now, 40 years later, then some, Dean will return to Capitol Hill to testify before a different Congress about a different president. John Dean's memory: A case study. Search by keyword or individual, or browse all episodes by clicking Explore the Collection below the search box. He places particular emphasis on the abdication of checks and balances by the Republican Congress and on the dishonesty of the conservative intellectual class in support of the Republican Party, as a result of the obedience and arrogance innate to the authoritarian mentality. In the 1995 film Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone, Dean was played by David Hyde Pierce. In White House Plumbers, an upcoming HBO limited series, Dean is portrayed by Domhnall Gleeson. Don McGahn represented the Office of the Presidency, not Donald Trump personally. When Nixon learned that Dean had begun cooperating with federal prosecutors, he pressed Attorney General Richard Kleindienst not to give Dean immunity from prosecution by telling Kleindienst that Dean was lying to the Justice Department about his conversations with the president.