As law enforcement and government officials — and everyday citizens — around the world scour the Jeffrey Epstein document dumps, it’s illuminating to take a look at attempts to cover up scandals of yore.
On March 22, 1973, President Richard Nixon met with a number of his advisers, including John Dean, Bob Haldeman, and John Erlichman, to discuss the White House’s connection to the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. The burglars had been caught red-handed, but Nixon steadfastly denied any knowledge of this politically motivated crime.
However, having had their bullshit meters tripped one too many times by Tricky Dick’s self-serving oratory, much of the public had already been questioning this know-nothing stance. At that Oval Office gathering in March, Nixon cast about for ways to get past this growing threat to his power. His in-house taping system recorded the conspirators discussing the tactic of allowing some of Nixon’s underlings to testify, with the understanding that when asked to say anything too revealing about the initial crime and the subsequent cover-up, they would respond that they could not answer “because of executive privilege.”
The tape captures Haldeman worrying that this might raise even more questions for “the guy sitting at home who watches [news anchor] John Chancellor say that the president is covering this up … the widest exercise of executive privilege in American history, and all that. He says, ‘What the hell’s he covering up? If he’s got no problem, why doesn’t he let them go and talk?’”
Even among themselves, the White House brain trust understood that Nixon had a growing credibility problem, and they fished around for a way to let selected morsels of information out:
PRESIDENT: You think, you think we want to, want to go this route now? And the — let it hang out, so to speak?
DEAN: Well, it’s, it isn’t really that —
HALDEMAN: It’s a limited hangout.
DEAN: It’s a limited hangout.
EHRLICHMAN: It’s a modified limited hangout.
PRESIDENT: Well, it’s only the questions of the thing hanging out publicly or privately.
DEAN: What it’s doing, Mr. President, is getting you up above and away from it. And that’s the most important thing.
PRESIDENT: Oh, I know. But I suggested that the other day and we all came down on, uh, remember we came down on, uh, on the negative on it. Now what’s changed our mind?
DEAN: The lack of alternatives, or a body.
[Laughter]