Jesse Miller
History
Bill Burke
President Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate Scandal
On around June 17th 1972 five individuals were caught breaking into the Democratic Parties headquarters. Their initial plan was to first search through files to see if they could obtain any information that could help President Nixon stay in office for further years. Nixon’s campaign panicked forming a covert group to halt leaks in the Democratic Headquarters. Their plan was to steal any top-secret documents, and they also bugged the office’s phones so they could hear every conversation that took place. On the other hand bugging the phones was unsuccessful so they thought they ought to give it a second go. But, a security guard noticed that someone taped the doors immediately triggering the guard’s response to call the police these men were then arrested, but not connected to Nixon right away. Once the burglars were searched and questioned they noticed that each burglar had copies of the white House committees phone number giving more suspicion that Nixon was behind it all. More and more evidence pointed to Nixon as time passed. Thousands of dollars were given to the burglars as “hush money”, not only for them to be quiet but also for their safety throughout the investigation. However, Nixon continuously denied that he had any involvement in such a scandal. But, it was known that Nixon was creating various secret tapes regarding the Watergate scandal. Yet, some important tapes that linked Nixon to this break-in were destroyed and no longer available. In July Nixon was then ordered to hand over the tapes, which he did, but some were nowhere to be found. However, on August 5th Nixon handed over all the tapes proving his guilt in the scandal. He then later resigned from office on August 8th and Gerald Ford would take his place as the next president. However after a few weeks in office Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he was known to have committed. Nixon abused his...