President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is now looking to see if Nixon-era special prosecutors committed misconduct in investigating the Watergate scandal.
An early morning burglary at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., in June 1972 would become a two-year affair, uncovering corruption inside the White House that would ultimately lead to Republican President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
More than 50 years later, Geoff Shepard, a former Nixon aide who has written books on Watergate, was invited last month to give a two-hour presentation to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal watchdog created out of the Watergate scandal, on allegations that the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the break-in committed misconduct, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
A DOJ spokesperson confirmed to The Independent that Shepherd gave a presentation to the Office of Professional Responsibility, but said it does not mean an investigation has been opened.
"OPR declined Mr. Shepherd's request to open an investigation in 2022 under the previous administration. Given his expertise and scholarship on Watergate, he was recently invited to give a presentation to OPR, but that presentation does not constitute an investigation,” the spokesperson said.
“OPR remains focused on ensuring that Department attorneys meet the highest professional standards."
Shepard showed DOJ officials internal documents from the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, the Journal reported. Special prosecutor Archibald Cox first led the team and then Leon Jaworski after Nixon demanded Cox be fired.
Shepard claims Cox and Jaworski violated defendants' due process rights in the Watergate investigation by secretly meeting with judges overseeing their cases and suppressing evidence from their legal teams, according to the Journal.
Nixon resigned in August 1974 while facing impeachment for allegations of obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress — mostly in relation to accusations that his administration tried to cover up its involvement in the Watergate break-in.
Speaking at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California in June, Vice President JD Vance drew parallels between Nixon and President Donald Trump, who has been indicted multiple times and claimed it was the result of a witch hunt.
“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 in the first Trump administration,” Vance said.
He also theorized that if the Watergate scandal were to happen in today’s media landscape, it wouldn’t impact the White House as greatly as it did in Nixon’s time.
“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,” Vance said.
