Watergate Day Of - 1973

New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell testifies in front of a House Judiciary Subcommittee that the FBI "hounded" him over his contacts with the Black Panthers going back as far as 1969. Caldwell said it got to a point where the FBI would call him daily for weeks at a time.

Senator Ervin says the sole objective of his committee "is to find out the truth of the matter."

Legislation is introduced by Senators Sam Ervin and Mike Mansfield to appropriate $500,000 to set up a five member (three democrats, two republicans) Senate Select Committee to focus on the Watergate break-in, campaign finance, and political dirty tricks in 1972 election.

ABC evening news lead story present allegations from Newsweek about John Dean being the key White House official that blocked the FBI Watergate investigation into the White House.

https://twitter.com/watergatedayof/status/1219309132207005700?s=21 …

Newsweek: "Sources from the defense" claim that Dean received orders from inside the White House to protect the "President's inner circle." Newsweek also alleges that Dean "reviewed and safeguarded" contents from Hunt's safe before turning them over to the FBI.

Newsweek publishes a story that alleges White House Counsel John Dean kept the FBI at distance from investigating possible White House involvement in the Watergate break-in.

*Just watched the Amazon ad where Nixon orders his secretary “Alicia” to “destroy the tapes.” It’s an odd placement in the commercial since all the other scenarios in the ad were presumably things Alexa can do. Not sure how destroying files fits into the Alexa OS.

In a prepared statement, Hugh Sloan lambasts Judge Sirica saying "the attacks that have been made on my integrity are totally unwarranted." Sloan accuses Sirica of mis-representing his statements in court and alleging his statements were inaccurate.

Nixon tells Colson that it's important to protect Mitchell and Haldeman from Watergate. Colson assures Nixon that Watergate is a non-issue and was never a "public issue."

Shumway tries to clarify that CRP approved Magruder to dispense funds as necessary, and it was Magruder that paid out the high amounts of cash that was requested by Liddy. He claims that Stans nor Mitchell never knew the amounts during the campaign.

Sam Dash and Sam Ervin meet for the first time. Ervin asks Dash to be the majority chief counsel for the upcoming Senate Select Committee on Watergate, which will hold public hearings and investigate campaign abuses in the 1972 election. Dash is unsure and asks to think about it.

FBI agents attempt to talk with attorney Daniel Schultz (lawyer for the four Miamians) about interviewing his clients. Schultz says that he would permit them to be interviewed after sentencing.

Lawyers for Liddy and McCord tell reporters that they are planning to appeal the convictions given Sirica's "unprecedented judicial tactics" and accused him of "working for the prosecution."

Justice officials additionally confirm that they are looking into the $89,000 that ended up in Barker's bank account as requested by Representative Wright Patman in January.

Outside the courtroom, Justice department officials respond to questions from reporters saying both Maurice Stans and John Mitchell have spoken to the FBI in the investigation in person and have cooperated throughout the investigation.

Before adjourning, Sirica says he hopes that a grand jury will continue to investigate based on testimony of Hugh Sloan and hopes that several key names that were mentioned are investigated as well.