Releasing Evidence? Nixon Versus The Courts

August 15, 2025

I’ve been writing here about the similarities—and contrasts—between 1973 and today in the way Congress and we as a nation respond to a president’s abuses of power, campaign “dirty tricks”/manipulation, weaponizing federal agencies against political enemies, and lies/disinformation/gaslighting. And today’s an anniversary that really illustrates that.

Then, like today, perhaps the most crucial bulwark: the courts. In 1973, that included one stubborn, gruff District Court judge named John Sirica, who held his legal ground no matter the attacks on him.   

#OTD, August 15th, 1973: the Senate Watergate Committee wrapped up its hearings that had rocked the nation that summer with one shocking revelation after another. What the investigative committee—and America—would do next revolved around the explosive testimony of John Dean (see my June 25th blog for more on that) and Colonel Alexander Butterfield, a former White House deputy assistant.

In July, with eight, quiet, reluctant words: “I was aware of listening devices. Yes, sir.” Butterfield revealed that Nixon had surreptitiously taped all Oval Office conversations. Those recordings could confirm or debunk Dean’s alarming assertions that Nixon had known about and participated in the attempted cover-up of the Watergate break-in and diverting campaign contributions to hush money for the convicted burglars.

The committee and the Special Prosecutor wanted those tapes. Not all of them—just nine, that, given their dates, were relevant to Watergate. But Nixon refused, claiming that exposing his conversations would harm national security.

His argument didn’t hold water with Judge Sirica. He ordered the President of the United States to abide by the law he’d actually taken an oath to uphold and comply with the Special Prosecutor’s subpoena.

Stalling, Nixon appealed Siricia’s decision. Then, he went on television to lie and chide the nation: “I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in. I neither took part in nor knew of the subsequent cover up activities. That was and is the simple truth. We have reached a point in which a backward obsession with Watergate is causing this nation to neglect matters of far greater importance to all American people.”

Nixon justified his refusal to obey congressional and court subpoenas and Sirica’s order by pronouncing his secret tapes were privileged. Like conversations “between priest and penitent or man and wife,” for him alone. He stuck to his claim that Watergate and campaign misdeeds were the actions of over-eager campaign workers and even blamed the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protests of previous years for “a rising spiral of violence” that established “the notion that the end justifies the means. We must recognize that one excess begets another and that the extremes of violence and discord in the 1960s contributed to the extremes of Watergate.”

Concluding that the investigation was a partisan witch hunt, Nixon didn’t point to Sirica by name but finished with: “I ask for your help to ensure that those who would exploit Watergate in order to keep us from doing what we were elected to do will not succeed..."

This time, however, his speech falls flat. Nixon’s national approval sinks to 31% from a 69% high just eight months before at his second inauguration.

I’ll end by noting another echo between 1973 and today that haunts me as a parent, step-grandmother, and young adult author. Something I experienced as a child and young teen myself in the late ’60s/early ’70s—the poisonous impact of adults’ hostile political rhetoric and hate-labels spilling onto us. One that the month of August—the annual return of our youth to classrooms, hopefully excited about their new school year and the wondrous learning adventure to come—really reminds me of.

An important underlying theme and plot element of TRUTH, LIES, AND THE QUESTIONS IN BETWEEN is exploring the trickle-down impact of our politics and scandals on our teens and 20-somethings, their beliefs, friendships, world view, and sense of agency (same with my other two docu-novels SUSPECT RED and WALLS). I have Patty listen to this August 15th speech with her hometown beau, a freshman at Georgetown University, in his dorm lounge, surrounded by other students who’ve just arrived on campus. The students’ reaction to Nixon’s words are decidedly mixed. Her boyfriend, Scott, remains undeterred in his devotion to Nixon, while Patty—given all she had witnessed at the hearings as a Senate page—is beginning to question what’s truth and what’s smokescreen:

“Scott stood and applauded, as did about a third of those in the room. The rest remained rooted in their seats, shaking their heads in disbelief and disappointment, or glowering at those standing—the tension between these new classmates as thick and sour as their cigarette smoke.

This is where Watergate has brought us, thought Patty sadly, looking around the room at the 18-year-olds who should have been flush with excitement and idealism and happy anticipation at sharing ideas in the communion a university was supposed to be—like she had felt at the inauguration. Instead, they were eyeing one another with suspicion and defensiveness and with a presumption of the other’s stupidity."

One of the mantras of the 1960s youth movement—when students’ peaceful protests against being drafted and sent to Vietnam were met by tear-gas-wielding police (or National Guard) in riot gear—was to chant: "the whole world is watching." Indeed.

Their response—whether you agree with their politics or methods or not—was to engage, to embrace new and varied perspectives to create a political polyglot, many becoming lifelong activists. It was messy, chaotic, fraught, the generation gap often a bitter chasm. But they revived our democratic traditions of e pluribus unum—from many voices, one.

I’m hoping for the same now. We adults need to listen and stop stealing our young people’s innocence, their idealism, their hope in the future with our polarized, culture-war nonsense, our refusal to face harsh questions or to stand up to bullies. Perhaps this August can be our metaphorical new school year of learning as well.