PRESIDENTIAL WRONGDOING.   Term Paper ID:18570 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Role of U.S. Department of Justice in cases of alleged crimes by presidents, emphasizing Watergate & Iran-Contra scandal.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Role of U.S. Department of Justice in cases of alleged crimes by presidents, emphasizing Watergate & Iran-Contra scandal. Paper Introduction: This study will examine the role of the United States Department of Justice in cases of alleged Presidential wrongdoing. The study will deal with the law in general regarding such investigations, but will concentrate primarily on the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals which rocked the administrations of President Richard Nixon and President Ronald Reagan. We shall discover in this study that because the Department of Justice is legally under the auspices of the executive branch, and, therefore the President of the United States himself, the Attorney General (head of the Department of Justice) and the Justice Department as a whole are thrown into major conflicts of interest when they are involved with investigating the President. The President, after all, has appointed the Attorney General, who is often one of his most Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. For example, the White House used a claim ofexecutive privilege to block investigation of White House adviser PeterFlanagan and his involvement in the International Telephone and Telegraphcase. The President, after all, has appointed the AttorneyGeneral, who is often one of his most trusted political allies. The involvement of the Justice Department in the illegalities, oralleged illegalities, of the Nixon Administration, can be illustrated withany number of examples. The "above matter" referred to Watergate and Nixon's hope that suchuse of the Justice Department's power--a clear abuse of power--would causethe selected media to ease their strong stand against possible White Houseinvolvement in the Watergate break-in and related executive branchillegalities. Nevertheless, it was the Justice Department under Attorney GeneralKleindienst that the moves were made which led to Nixon's losing controlfinally of the events of Watergate and the resultant scandal. Eliot Richardson replacedKleindienst as Attorney General, and Nixon tried to force Richardson tofire the effective special prosecutor Archibald Cox. He refused and lost his post. . . . . The public cannot fully respect a government inwhich the President's chief legal adviser serves simultaneously as hischief political adviser and patronage dispenser. Finally, Nixon got SolicitorGeneral Bork to fire Cox, but it was too late, and the scandal wouldculminate with the resignation of the President. Watchmen in the Night. . . . .destroying the tapes . . In the Iran-Contra scandal as inWatergate, the Justice Department was revealed as more an arm of the WhiteHouse than as an independent means of investigating possible Presidentialwrong-doing. Meese also, among many abusesof Justice Department power, called Central Intelligence Agency chief Caseyand told him beforehand what the Justice Department would be looking for inpast CIA activities (Inouye 271). As a result of Watergate, as Sorensen writes, proposals have beenmade "to insulate the Attorney General himself and the Department ofJustice from politics . Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North testified that Meese was the onewho gave North time to destroy crucial incriminating documents in NationalSecurity Council offices (Inouye 267-268). Kleindienst said they must be kidding . In Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, the same shortcomings were exposed.Attorney General Edwin Meese was one of Reagan's closest aides. The legalrelationship between the President and the Attorney General in terms ofJustice Department inquiries into Presidential wrongdoing was exposed inall its shoddy light when, at one point, Meese declared that when he wastrying to get all the facts on the scandal he was acting as "legal adviserto the President" (Inouye 266). New York: Times Books, 1988.Sorensen, Theodore. .and . ." (White 214). Report of the Congressional Committees. Nevertheless, Nixon agreed to allow Kleindienst toremain as Attorney General (he was seeing signs that he was about to beousted because he was not malleable enough for Nixon and Nixon's aides) ifthe Attorney General, head of the Justice Department, would "fire everypolitical appointee in the Department of Justice and fire everyone in everygrade from C-15 up. . The Nixon effort, as with the Reagan effort later with respect tothe Iran-Contra scandal, was designed to prevent an effective investigationby the Department of Justice into possible Presidential wrongdoing. Richardson refusedand was fired. . How can the legal adviser to the Presidentbe the man in charge of investigating, and perhaps prosecuting, that samePresident? . The toneof the department . . Even thepossible threat of anti-trust action I think would be effective in changingtheir views in the above matter" (White 119). Nixon ran into some resistance when he tried to manipulate AttorneyGeneral Richard Kleindienst in the midst of the Justice Department'sinvestigation into Watergate and possible White House involvement.Kleindienst was called to Camp David in November, 1972, and Nixon made aremarkable request--if not demand--of the head of the Justice Department.Nixon should have known that Kleindienst would resist the request, becausehe had demonstrated some independence previously in trying to dissuadeNixon in the ITT case. There was theoption of hanging John Mitchell and John Dean separately, and then . Nixonfor the first time, or so White writes, became aware of the extent of WhiteHouse involvement in the scandal. TheWatergate scandal revealed the conflict of interest involved in JusticeDepartment investigations of possible Presidential wrongdoing. Cambridge: MIT P, 1975.White, Theodore. As Berger writes, "Flanagan was caught up in the InternationalTelephone and Telegraph scandal, which turned on the charge that theJustice Department settled three antitrust suits against ITT in exchangefor a $4 , guarantee by the corporation of the expenses of the 1972Republican National Convention" (Berger 259). Hehad several options in the face of Justice Department pressure: "There wasthe option of doing justice, as a President should . Throughout the scandal, the Justice Department, in Meese'shands, sought to protect the President and other members of the White Housestaff. In such an example, we begin to see the inherent folly of theinvestigation of the President in any possible wrongdoing by the Departmentof Justice. Nixon did not decide, however, and eventually a special prosecutorwas appointed and the cover-up began to unravel. ." (White 215). Executive Privilege. . Breach of Faith. There was the option of telling all . Deputy Attorney General William Rucelshaus was asked tofire Cox. . The Attorney General did not likethe first two because they had been trying to fire him for hisindependence, but Mitchell was a good friend of his, so he tried toconvince Nixon to appoint a special prosecutor to do the dirty work. Clearly, as Nixon and his aides explained to Kleindienst, thesuggested firing of the leaders and top employees of the Justice Departmentwas meant to bring the Department entirely under control of the WhiteHouse. TheAttorney General knew he must act at once and telephoned the White House .. its leadership, depended on the morale of its topcivil-service officers. Justice can be said tohave finally prevailed, but the role of the Justice Department was spottyat best, and too often yielded to the influence of the President. However, Kleindienst did not go to the President in order to informhim that his top aides--Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and Mitchell --would beindicted by the Department of Justice. . This study will examine the role of the United States Department ofJustice in cases of alleged Presidential wrongdoing. Iran-Contra Affair. . Nixon, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, also suggestedutilization of the anti-trust division of the Justice Department "toinvestigate various media relating to anti-trust violations. New York: William Morrow, 1982.Berger, Raoul. As thesituation stands, the Justice Department is simply too politicized toeffectively administer justice to the President or his staff. Taking Care of the Law. New York: Atheneum, 1975.----------------------- 7 Weshall discover in this study that because the Department of Justice islegally under the auspices of the executive branch, and, therefore thePresident of the United States himself, the Attorney General (head of theDepartment of Justice) and the Justice Department as a whole are throwninto major conflicts of interest when they are involved with investigatingthe President. appoint a special prosecutor . . Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1974.Inouye, Daniel, et al. These proposals were repeated after the Iran-Contra scandal. On April 14, 1973, when Nixon believed that he was being successfulin obstructing justice and covering up White House involvement in the break-in, "the two most vulnerable of the underground net, Dean and Magruder, hadbeen telling all they knew to (Justice Department) prosecutors (andKleindienst) in the hope of the mercy which justice yields to those whocooperate . Nor can court decisionslimiting presidential power have their intended effect on future Presidentsif the legal advice received by those Presidents dilutes the meaning orapplicability of those decisions for political reasons" (Sorensen 135-136). The Attorney General had been listening to hisdepartment's prosecutors give him the full details of the coverup . The folly is magnified when we recognize that the primarycharge investigated in recent years is the possible abuse of Presidentialpower, when in fact the Department of Justice is itself engaged, throughthe orders, spoken or unspoken, of the President, in such abuses of powerin the executive branch. . Thepresence of the special prosecutor and Congressional investigations havesucceeded in bringing Presidents accused of wrongdoing to a form ofjustice, but the doubt remains strong that any future Attorney General orJustice Department can effectively investigate the President. Works CitedBell, Griffin. It is nosurprise to discover in these cases that the Department of Justice at bestmakes only a minimal effort in investigating possible Presidentialwrongdoing, and, in fact, is itself often involved in attempts tosidetrack, stall, or prevent such an investigation which could damage thePresident. . The study will dealwith the law in general regarding such investigations, but will concentrateprimarily on the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals which rocked theadministrations of President Richard Nixon and President Ronald Reagan. . Kleindienst refused to do the firings" (White178). The ball lay in Nixon's court now. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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