Top secret Watergate documents reveal new details on burglars who acted under orders from Nixon admi

[Jazzy]

Watergate Judge John J. Sirica aided the prosecution in pursuing the White House connection to the Democratic headquarters break-in by providing the special prosecutor information from a probation report in which one of the burglars said he was acting under orders from top Nixon administration officials, according to once-secret documents released Friday by the National Archives.



One newly public transcript of an in-chambers meeting between Sirica, the U.S. District Court judge in charge of the case, and then-Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in July 1973 shows the judge revealed secret probation reports indicating that E. Howard Hunt had cited orders from officials high up in the Nixon administration.



Several of Hunt's co-defendants had previously denied any White House involvement in court testimony, and Sirica told Cox and other prosecutors that he felt the new information 'seemed to me significant.'



The government released more than 850 pages from the Watergate political scandal, providing new insights on privileged legal conversations and prison evaluations of several of the burglars in the case.



A federal judge had decided earlier this month to unseal some material, but other records still remain off limits.



U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the files unsealed earlier this month after a request from Luke Nichter, a professor at Texas A&M University-Central Texas. Nichter wrote Lamberth in 2009 asking for release of the materials.



Lamberth held back other sealed materials but agreed to ask the Justice department to explain the reasoning for keeping those materials secret.

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What good is this going to do to unveil this now? I have no idea, do you?

 

[Evil Eye]

What good is this going to do to unveil this now?

That's the point of releasing classified documents 40 years after the event.

Should be interesting to historians though.

 

[DrLeftover]

It does prove that politicians are still all crooks, liars, thieves, assholes, blackguards, knaves, reprobates, criminals, liars (did I say liars? oh, yeah, sorry), slimewads, lowlifes....