Nixon & Watergate Revisited

**Brian Lehrer** (0:11)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. This weekend will mark the 52nd anniversary of Richard Nixon resigning from the presidency over the Watergate scandal. We all agree Watergate was bad and a big deal, right?
Well, not JD Vance, as he made clear recently, we played this clip before, but today we'll take a closer look at both the real history of Watergate and why there is a movement now to minimize it. Here's the vice president speaking in June.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:41)
If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story.
The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy. And by the way, if you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump and the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:08)
That was at the Nixon Library, by the way, in June. The deep state took down Nixon, he says, not Nixon's crimes, Vice President JD. Vance. So how much of that is true and why are Vance and others on the political right bringing it up? Now, let's talk Watergate history and its connection to 2026 politics with Jill Wine-Banks, legal analyst, former Watergate special prosecutor, co-host of the podcast Sisters in Law and Just the Facts, and author of The Watergate Girl, My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President, published in 2020
If I have her bio right, Jill Wine-Banks was also the first woman to serve as US. General Counsel of the Army, and the first woman executive director of the American Bar Association. Jill, nice to have you on with us again. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Jill Wine-Banks** (2:01)
Thank you, Brian. I'm really glad to be here.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:04)
I knew your Watergate background and your legal analyst podcast work and on TV, but not those other things. Did you make history in those ways?

**Jill Wine-Banks** (2:12)
I did, and I was lucky enough in those roles to be able to do something positive for other women.
I was able to help eliminate the Women's Army Corps, which allowed women to be integrated into the regular army, and therefore to be able to be generals who could head the JAD Corps or anything else in the army, as opposed to just being head of the Women's Army Corps. It was really an exciting period of time to be part of the Pentagon at a time when the Department of Defense really did focus on defending our nation and not attacking other countries, or alleged drug dealers without evidence.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:53)
Maybe we should have you back on another day for another history segment. And I'm sure you would have a lot to say about not just the things you just cited, but Defense Secretary Hegseth's, what's the word, failure to promote, eagerness to dismiss women in the top ranks today.
But I saw you post that JD Vance is right on one point. Watergate would be a minor story today because it pales in comparison to Trumpgate, as you called it. But you wrote it was a crime deserving of removal from office. So let's break that down, beginning with the history and let's do some Watergate 101, Jill, because so many people who didn't live through it, which a lot of our listeners obviously don't know the fascinating basics. What was the actual Watergate break-in during the 1972 Nixon re-election campaign that began the saga?

**Jill Wine-Banks** (3:51)
So historically, there are actually two break-ins. The first one installed a listening device on the wrong phone. They intended to get the head of the Democratic National Committee, Lawrence O'Brien, but they failed. So they went back in to do that, and they got caught red-handed. They were seen entering, they taped up a door, and the guard saw the tape on the door, called the police, and they were arrested inside. They had $100 bills stuffed in their pockets. They had expensive cameras, fancy suits, rubber gloves. And so you knew immediately that it was not just an ordinary break-in. There was something going on. And then began what became known as the cover-up. And that's really what got Richard Nixon into trouble. There's no evidence he knew that there was going to be a break-in, but as soon as he found out about it, he said, you can't let the FBI investigate the money because those $100 bills came from cashing a campaign check in Florida.
And so it could have been linked immediately to the Committee to Re-elect the President, also known as CREEP.