Former White House Counsel Allegedly Planned Violent Attack

This was a much bigger scandal than we've been previously led to believe.

Watergate has been in the news more frequently than at any point since the 70s. Sure, we are rounding into the 45th anniversary of the break-in that took out a presidency, but the current obsession with it is something different. With the election of Donald Trump, many Americans — or at least the majority of the electorate that voted for Hillary Clinton — are searching for a quick way out of the death spiral of the Trump administration. As such, looking to the last derailed Republican administration for inspiration and comparison has become a bit of a cottage industry.

Now comes a revelation by NBC News that prosecutors in the Watergate case were building a case that aides to Richard Nixon were plotting a violent attack on protestors. They’ve uncovered a previously unreleased memo written by Watergate special prosecutor Nick Akerman on June 5, 1975. NBC is reporting that it was attorney Charles Colson who orchestrated the plot to physically attack Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and other anti-war protestors, though prosecutors at the time did not believe they had enough evidence to indict Colson, largely because of a lawful counterprotest he was organizing:

Prosecutors concluded that White House counsel Charles Colson had directed the operation, which Colson denied.

Prosecutors initially responded to newspaper reports that Bernard Barker, a Cuba-born Watergate burglar, and a group of nine Miami associates “had engaged antiwar demonstrators in a fight” and that Colson was behind it.

Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice related to stealing Ellsberg’s medical files, but was never charged for conduct related to this plot. The memo addresses that distinction, noting that while prosecutors concluded Colson was involved, the evidence they had “would not be sufficient to indict Colson.”

“There is still no clear way to link Colson to the assault which is muddled by his efforts to organize a lawful counterdemonstration,” the memo concludes. “This melding of the counterdemonstration and the assault had been a problem throughout this investigation in charging anybody with a crime.”

Ellsberg was not attacked as allegedly planned, and, in an appearance on MSNBC, Akerman, the memo’s author, believes the attackers couldn’t reach Ellsberg, though the exact reasons remain unclear. (Colson passed away in 2012.)

The Akerman memo also claims that Nixon was apprised of some elements of the plot, but details were kept from him because it “might someday hurt the president.” But now we know that prosecutors believe the scandal we know as Watergate was much larger than was revealed at the time.

“I think what it (the plot) tells us is that Watergate was a much greater attack on our democracy from all different respects,” Akerman told [MSNBC host Ari] Melber. “People think of it as just the Watergate break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. It was much more than that.”

Moral of the story? Don’t piss off Don McGahn.

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NBC News Exclusive: Memo Shows Watergate Prosecutors Had Evidence Nixon White House Plotted Violence [NBC News]


headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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