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Compare And Contrast United States Vs Nixon

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United States Vs. Nixon Richard Nixon was the United States president from 1969 to 1973. After his first term, Nixon ran for reelection and won by a landslide. How he won this election, though, is what took him to the Supreme Court. He violated many U.S. laws and abused his presidential power. This ordeal became the greatest presidential scandal in U.S. history. It all started when President Nixon needed some extra help with his reelection campaign. He offered some of his aides a whole lot of money if they would break into the democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Here they would plant listening devices and steal top secret documents. They followed their tasks as directed by the president and did not get caught. The aides forgot …show more content…

One of them wrote a letter to the judge saying that high white house officials had knowledge of the break in and paid the burglars to keep quiet and lie during trial. Investigators found that Nixon had tried to cover up thousands of dollars that was being sent to the aides that broke into the Watergate Hotel. Also, documents linking Nixon to the cover up of the break in had been destroyed, and it had been known that the republican administration had illegally wiretapped the phones of journalists that had been critical of Nixon. Nixon also hatched a plan with his aides to instruct the CIA to interfere with the FBI’s investigation of the crime. This was an abuse of his presidential …show more content…

This was very illegal because he did not inform anyone else that he was recording conversations in there. His prosecutor demanded of the tapes for proof and he refused to turn over any of them, knowing that the tapes would expose him for being involved in all of the crimes committed. Also Nixon fired any uncooperative staff members going against him. One of them being Archibald Cox who was on the senate committee and an independent special prosecutor. Cox refused to stop demanding the tapes and President Nixon ordered that he be fired. This led to many Justice Department officials to resign to show their protest against them. This became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. After all of this chaos, Nixon finally agreed to hand over some of the tapes, but not all. The Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over all of the tapes. After having most of the evidence needed, the House of Representatives voted unanimously to impeach Nixon for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, criminal cover-up, and several violations of the Constitution. Finally Nixon released all of the tapes, which provided undeniable evidence of his involvements in the Watergate crimes. Knowing he would certainly get impeached by congress, Nixon resigned and left office the next

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