Richard M. Nixon And The Watergate Scandal

An often media scrutinized and citizen adored President, Richard M. Nixon was a liberal Republican that led his political career in a manner that not only caused great controversy during his time, but has also set limitations for contemporary Presidencies due to his over-zealous attempt of executive supremacy. While considered to be relaxed and humorous as an individual, politically he was considered an unstoppable and evil deviant to the political process. His stubborn attitude and relentless political agenda to obtain greater executive power, led to the events of the Watergate scandal and United States v. Nixon. The latter has proven to be one of the most influential cases in the last fifty-years, as it taught the nation to further question the lawful actions of both the U.S. government, the courts, and the President.
Historical Background
Within the beginning of his second Presidential term, Nixon had developed an extensive business-like model to obtain Presidential control over the national administration and its constituents, which would soon lead to his implementation of the Watergate scandal and the controversial recordings of the Oval Office. This idea of an “Administrative Presidency” led him to believe that the President had the ultimate responsibility to manage the nation and the federal bureaucracy, in order to succeed in his “New Federalism” agenda of welfare reform and revenue sharing. His primary roadblock for achieving such principle elements, compared to his first term, was his obligation towards a Congress that held strong liberal views. Nonetheless, Nixon learned to manage their actions revolving around his policies using four primary features.
Foremost, in order to transform the government and courts toward...

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...chibald Cox directed the president to release the tapes; which were believed to hold information regarding the Democratic National Committee (Watergate) break-in and initial bribery, phone bugs, and the White House’s involvement cover-up efforts. While Nixon agreed to provide summaries of the recorded information, he stood strong in his efforts to not relinquish the tapes to the Supreme Court. Before the case of United States v. Nixon officially came about, Nixon had attempted to appoint a new special prosecutor that would provide more leniency. However, Texas Democrat Leon Jaworski proved to be less sympathetic of the President’s predicament as he had hoped, which persuaded Nixon to only provide twenty doctored tapes. Due to his inability to comply with the District Court’s orders, their grand jury and the Supreme Court overtook the case for a more forceful review.