I’m Mr. Beat
Today, whenever the suffix “-gate” is at the end of something, ya know it’s bad,
man. Travelgate
Coingate Climategate
Nipplegate Bountygate
Gamergate Deflategate
Pizzagate Sharpiegate
Slapgate Fartgate Basically, if gate is at the end of a noun,
it suggests there might be some widespread scandal or controversy going on. For example, let’s take Fartgate. Yes, this was a real…thing. So the controversy was that someone clearly
farted on air when MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was interviewing Congressman Eric Swalwell,
but to this day NO ONE has admitted to doing the farting. For the record, I think it was Swalwell who
farted. Anyway, how did this whole adding “gate”
to the end of a noun to describe a scandal or controversy begin? Well that’s simple. It was the Watergate scandal. Steven: What was the Watergate scandal? Mr. Beat: You really want to know? Steven: Yes! Mr. Beat: You really think you can handle
this? Steven: Yes! Mr. Beat: (turning to camera) Fine. Let’s do this. Here’s the story of the Watergate scandal. Once upon a time…well on June 17, 1972,
to be exact, five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate
Office Building in Washington, D.C. Steven: Oh is that why it’s called “Watergate?” Mr. Beat: Yes that’s why it’s called “Watergate.” Anyway, the five men tried to set up a wiretap
and photograph confidential Democratic Party documents. Well, Forrest Gump called up a Watergate security
guard named Frank Wills and told him about it. Just kidding. That was just a movie. Forrest Gump is not real. He’s a fake. He’s never existed. He’s made up. Fabricated. But Tom Hanks is real, and thank goodness
for that. Anyway, Frank Wills actually noticed tape
covering the latches on some of Watergate’s doors, which allowed the doors to close but
stay unlocked. He called the police, and they promptly came
and arrested the men. Little did most know that these men were connected
with the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, or the CRP, or CREEP. Steven: Excuse me, did you call me a creep? Mr. Beat: No I did not. What the heck are you doin’ here? Steven: I don’t belong here The CRP was, officially, a fundraising organization
to get Richard Nixon re-elected. Unofficially, they did all kinds of illegal
stuff. Ya know, stuff like breaking into Democratic
National Committee headquarters. The five men arrested were Virgilio Gonzalez,
Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis. Four of them were Cuban exiles. They were charged with attempted burglary
and attempted interception of communications, basically tryna spy and stuff. Three reporters at the Washington Post: Alfred
Lewis, Carl Bernstein, and Bob Woodward, covered the arrests, but later Bernstein and Woodward
decided to do a little more digging, and soon discovered that two other dudes were involved
with the burglary: Everette Howard Hunt, a former CIA officer, and George Gordon Liddy,
a former FBI agent. Huh. And both were creeps! I mean, both worked for CREEP, or the CRP,
or the Committee for the Re-Election of the President! And so did James McCord! As a matter of fact, Bernstein and Woodward
also discovered that the four Cuban exiles who broke into Watergate had previously worked
with the CIA...with Hunt in particular. Well, Bernstein and Woodward had a little
help. A mysterious person began providing them important
information. Sometimes he called, and sometimes Woodward
would meet him in a dark parking garage. The person claimed he was an FBI agent himself
and a Washington Post editor later jokingly referred to him simply as “Deep Throat.” Steven: Deep Throat? Mr. Beat: Hey watch your mouth, sonny boy Soon everyone was calling him Deep Throat. As it turns out, the FBI had an investigation
into the Watergate break-in, too, and boy was it juicy. For starters, they had found a check made
out to the CRP for $25,000 actually deposited in the bank accounts of one of the Watergate
burglars, Bernard Baker. Soon the FBI and Bernstein and Woodward had
also found out that Hunt and Liddy were destroying all evidence that linked the five men who
broke into Watergate to not only the CRP, but to President Richard Nixon himself. Oh, and the higher ups were involved. Liddy’s boss, Jeb Magruder? In on the cover up. Even John freaking Mitchell. I mean John N. Mitchell, who not only led
the CRP, but was recently the Attorney General in the Nixon administration, was in on the
cover up. There’s no way to know that Nixon himself
knew that the CRP did all these shady things, but once he found out that the CRP was connected
to Watergate, he worked with his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, to cover it up. Steven: Wouldn’t that make things worse? Mr. Beat: Abso-lutely Once Nixon and his administration realized
the press were looking into them being involved with the Watergate break-in, they immediately
began to distance themselves. Nixon’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler, said
the President had no comment on a “third-rate burglary attempt.” Nixon ran a public relations campaign to insist
he nor his administration, nor even the CRP were connected at all. John Mitchell went as far as having his wife
kind of kidnapped so she wouldn’t talk to the press about what she knew about the break-in. I’m serious. Now, Nixon was obviously more concerned about
the FBI investigation, and especially more concerned that the FBI was apparently working
with Bernstein and Woodward. He met with Haldeman and told him to have
the CIA pressure the FBI into dropping its Watergate investigation. Oh this was a recorded conversation, by the
way. It was on tape! Crazy enough, the FBI went along with it…for
a little while at least. And while Bernstein and Woodward never lost
focus, continuing to publish stories describing the CRP’s dirty tricks, most of the media
did lose focus, and Nixon easily won re-election in November. The Watergate break-in had hardly any effect
on the presidential election of 1972. But despite the landslide victory for Nixon,
Watergate wasn’t going to fade away any time soon. Around the same time Nixon was inaugurated,
the trial of the Watergate burglars began, with Judge John Sirica presiding. Nixon had a close eye on the trial, meeting
with his advisors, the Johns, about concerns that the dudes on trial might speak to the
press. John Dean, the White House Counsel, and John
Ehrilichman, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs. On January 30, 1973, the Watergate burglars
plead guilty or were convicted for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping
laws. Judge Sirica, however, suspected there was
a major cover-up, and that the CRP or the President had to know all about the Watergate
break-in. His suspicions were confirmed after James
McCord wrote a letter to him implicating Nixon and his advisors in the cover-up. Nixon was like “I knew one of them would
try this crap!” and called an emergency meeting with John Dean again. Dean urged Nixon to come clean, that the only
way to keep everyone else quiet was to pay them off with a million dollars. Nixon replied And this is on tape. This is on tape. Steven: It’s on tape? Mr. Beat: It’s on tape Nixon replied: “You could get a million
dollars. And you could get it in cash. I know where it could be gotten.” In other words, Nixon had no intention of
ever coming clean on this. Nixon later tried to make it seem he was kidding,
but regardless when it was clear Dean wasn’t going along with Nixon, Nixon fired him on
April 30, 1973. Well, Dean had been working with the FBI by
that time, anyway. Shortly afterward, even though Ehrlichman
and Haldeman seemed to still be on board with Nixon, they resigned…well… after Nixon
pressured them to, and so did four other Nixon advisors. By now, top officials in the CRP like Jeb
Magruder and even John Mitchell were facing indictment, and to attempt to calm down the
press, which all of sudden was now paying close attention, Nixon announced that he was
not involved with Watergate at all. Well that didn’t ease the minds of the United
States Senate. In May, it formed the Watergate Committee,
chaired by respected North Carolina senator Sam Ervin. Former Nixon aides told the committee that
lots of crimes had happened before the 1972 election intended to undermine the president’s
opponents. Well Nixon appointed a Harvard law professor
named Archibald Cox to lead a separate, independent investigation. In June, the Watergate Committee called in
John Dean. The Tennessee senator Howard Baker famously
asked “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Dean spilled the beans. He said he had talked with Nixon about the
Watergate coverup many, many times, and that Nixon refused to come clean about it. Nixon was like, nah man, fake news. Dean is making that stuff up. But Americans soon found out that there was
a new system in the White House that automatically recorded everything in the Oval Office and
Cabinet Room, so if Nixon was in on the Watergate break-in or even if he just knew about it
and was trying to cover it up, there could be evidence of it in the recordings. Archibald Cox, as well as the Senate, immediately
subpoenaed the White House recordings. However, Nixon refused to release them, citing
his “executive privilege” as the president. He even ordered Cox to drop his subpoena,
but Cox refused. In response, on Saturday, October 20, 1973,
Nixon told his Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Well Richardson refused and immediately resigned. So Nixon then told Richardson’s next in
command, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire him. Well Ruckelshaus also refused and also resigned. So Nixon then told Ruckelshaus’ next in
command, Robert Bork, to fire him and Bork was like, “ok fine I’ll fire him.” This whole fiasco became known as the Saturday
Night Massacre. Steven: A massacre? That doesn’t make Nixon very good, does
it Mr. Beat: No siree, and many Americans began
to protest, and after lots of public pressure, Nixon finally agreed to release the tapes. Well, some of them at least. Judge Sirica asked for nine tapes. Nixon gave him seven, and one of those seven
tapes…uh…had a big gap of 18 and a half minutes on it that experts say could not have
happened accidentally. That was one of the conversations with…you
probably guessed it…John Dean. In November, Nixon made a now famous proclamation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh163n1lJ4M Still, by early 1974, it seemed pretty clear
that President Nixon had at least known about the Watergate break-in and tried to cover
it up. There was just little solid evidence to prove
it. On March 1, 1974, a grand jury indicted seven
former aides of Nixon, who later simply became known as the “Watergate Seven.” That group included the aforementioned John
Mitchell, Bob Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman, but additionally Charles Colson, Gordon Strachan,
Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson. In April, the dude who took Cox’s place
to investigate the Watergate break-in, Leon Jaworski, had another subpoena ordering Nixon
to release 64 additional tapes of his conversations in the Oval Office. Well, instead of releasing the tapes, Nixon
just gave them edited transcripts of some of the conversations. Nixon even asked Judge John Sirica to reverse
the subpoena, but Sirica denied the motion, saying Nixon had until May 31st to turn over
the tapes. Well this turned into a major Supreme Court
case called United States v. Nixon, and I actually just released a Supreme Court Briefs
video about it so feel free to watch that now. (to Steven) Say, have you watched it yet? Steven: Watched what? Mr. Beat: Nevermind, well long story short,
Nixon lost that case Not only had Nixon lost that case, but now
it also looked like the House of Representatives was going to impeach him on the charges of
obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Woahness. Not only that, Bernstein and Woodward had
now even published an entire book that went over their reporting into the whole Watergate
Scandal that later became a movie. By August, 57% of Americans wanted Nixon removed
from office. Feeling the pressure like never before, and
worried about further disgrace, Nixon announced his resignation on August 8, 1974. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_DrUaJEBtE&t
He became the first and to this date only president in American history to quit the
job. The man who replaced him as President, Gerald
Ford, later gave him a full pardon, so Nixon never faced any criminal punishment. For the rest of his life, he maintained his
innocence. But others in his administration? Yeah that’s a different story. In total, 69 people were indicted and 48 people
convicted for either participating in, aiding in, or covering up information about the Watergate
break-in. Again, MANY of these folks were top Nixon
administration officials. Some top dogs even ended up serving prison
time. Most of the 48 convicted served prison time. Congress moved to further reduce the power
of the Presidency, passing laws like the Privacy Act and creating committees to oversee the
shenanigans of executive branch agencies. In 2005, Americans learned that “Deep Throat,”
ya know, the dude who provided Bernstein and Woodward all the important information for
their reporting, was an FBI agent named Mark Felt. Steven: So his real name wasn’t Deep Throat? Mr. Beat: I’m afraid not. The Watergate Scandal is arguably the biggest
political scandal in American history. It led to a major setback for the Republican
Party, especially as they lost many seats in Congress in the 1974 midterm elections. Watergate dramatically increased cynicism
and distrust of the federal government, which had already been on the rise due to its lies
revolving around the Vietnam War. But it also proved that the American system
of checks and balances actually worked. The judicial and legislative branches were
able to fight corruption within the executive branch, and ever since the Presidents have
been a bit more cautious, I’d argue. Well, most of them have been a bit more cautious. We’ll leave it at that. Hey, want to learn a whole lot more about
Watergate? Well I have two suggestions. First, you gotta check out the book All the
President’s Men and the film based on it. Second, I strongly suggest watching this wonderful
documentary called Nixon In The Den, which is exclusively available through MagellanTV. It features a fresh look at Watergate with
rare, behind-the-scenes footage. But once you’re done watching Nixon In The
Den, why stop there? MagellanTV has the richest and most varied
history content available anywhere, covering ancient history, modern history, military
and political history, and biographies. It currently features more than 3,500 hours
of documentaries. 15 to 20 hours of new content is added each week. Magellan TV has no ads and can be watched
anytime, anywhere, on your TV, laptop, or mobile device, compatible with Roku, AmazonFireTV,
AppleTV, Google Play, and iOS. An annual membership is less than $60, but
viewers of my channel will get a one-month free trial by clicking on the link in the
description of this video. So if Watergate happened today, how would
Americans react to it? I tend to think it’d be quite a bit different
as we were a lot less partisan in the 1970s, but let me know in those comments.Hey if you’re
watching this video right now and you’re looking for a free tutor or if you want to
tutor yourself, check out Connect Me, a non profit organization meant to help students
grades K-8. They’re doing great work. I’ve put a link in the description for you
to check them out. Thanks to my brother Steven for helping me
make this video, and thank YOU for watching.
