I helped investigate Watergate. The DOJ’s attempt to reframe Nixon as the victim is extremely dangerous.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is looking into whether the prosecutors who investigated Watergate acted improperly, according to The Wall Street Journal. Nick Akerman, who served as an assistant special Watergate prosecutor from 1973 to 1976, argues that giving the idea credence would damage the rule of law. The office heard from Geoff Shepard, a onetime Nixon White House fellow and author of a book on the subject, who maintains that the deep state brought Nixon down. Vice President JD Vance voiced a similar parallel at the Nixon Library this summer, comparing Watergate to treatment of Donald Trump during his first term, according to MS NOW.

Akerman rejects that account. He points to the June 23, 1972, recording in which Nixon told H. R. Haldeman to have the CIA steer the FBI away from the break-in, and to a March 21, 1973, recording in which Nixon approved paying $1 million to the burglars. Akerman says Shepard's claim that the CIA calls were meant to protect donor names has no supporting evidence, and that Shepard ignores Nixon's tax evasion over backdated papers.

Shepard also accuses prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski of secret contacts with judges and of withholding evidence from defendants.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →