If there’s one thing that must give a shady businessman or corrupt politician sleepless nights it’s the knowledge that his attorney is about to cooperate with federal prosecutors in a case against him. The lawyer is the one person, with the exception of his spouse (and maybe not even then), entrusted with his most nefarious secrets. If that lawyer is also his self-described “fixer,” already known to pay hush money and personally threaten people on his behalf, well, let’s just say sleepless nights aren’t the half of it.
Back in April of 1973, the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, woke up one morning to learn that former White House counsel John Dean had been cooperating with federal prosecutors who were investigating his administration’s involvement in the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters the previous spring. He had good reason to be sweating bullets about that, since Dean had been instrumental in the cover-up the president had personally directed.
After months of a slow news drip implicating various Nixon associates in slush funds and dirty tricks, the scandal had reached the Oval Office. The FBI director had resigned over having destroyed evidence, Nixon had fired Dean and had been forced to ask his most trusted henchmen, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, to resign. Nixon knew that Dean wanted to cooperate with the investigation so it wasn’t a huge surprise to learn that he was telling all, but it still had to be a very bad day.
Dean turned out to be an incredibly effective witness. He had tried to get documentary evidence out of the White House to back up his story but had been unable to do it. He had an extremely sharp memory for detail, however, and unlike today where the Congress is actually participating in the cover-up, there were public hearings, at which Dean’s testimony was dramatic and unforgettable.
He told the story of participating in White House efforts to hide its involvement in various crimes and of…