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The 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon, resigned from office on August 9, 1974 in the wake of the Watergate Scandal. Ahead of the 50th anniversary of Nixon's resignation on August 9, 2024, Jeff Shepherd, a senior official in the Nixon administration and the youngest lawyer on the Watergate defense team, reflected on the rise and fall of Nixon's presidency in an intimate, exclusive interview with The New American's Andrew Mueller.
Mr. Shepard, who personally transcribed Nixon's tapes and managed the White House documents room, said the legal attacks against Nixon and his aides “ultimately amounted to a coup.”
“I didn't have a front-row seat,” recalled Shepherd, author of “Watergate: The Case Against Trump.” “I was onstage as the crisis unfolded.” Shepherd is the only White House staffer to receive a letter of authorization from the special counsel, even though many of his colleagues have been indicted, prosecuted or imprisoned.
After leaving Washington for a career as a lawyer in the insurance industry, Shepard discovered in 2003 that all of the Watergate special counsel's records were held at the National Archives. Credentialed to view the documents, Shepard discovered what he called “a cabal of government officials from all three branches of government who met in secret to quietly coordinate an attack on the Nixon administration.” The specially recruited group of 100 federal officials, including 60 lawyers, “went rogue” because they were intent on “getting Nixon and his top aides,” Shepard said.
Sheppard's investigation also uncovered memoranda documenting at least 10 illegal secret meetings with federal prosecutors and Judge John Sirica, who presided over the Watergate cover-up and theft trials, as well as Judge Gerhard Gesell, who presided over the White House Task Force (aka “the Plumbers”) trial.
Ultimately, Shepherd argued, the Nixon story has broad application to America's current political climate, comparing the legal battle against Nixon to that of former President Donald J. Trump. While Watergate and its disasters are in the past, lessons learned from it may help steer the United States into safer waters in 2024.
Watch the full episode of Unrestricted at https://thenewamerican.com/video/unrestricted/.
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