The Senate Watergate Committee has been credited with reviving public confidence in congressional investigations, which had declined during the McCarthy inquiries of the 1950s. Several factors contributed to the committee’s overall success including extensive media coverage, sustained public interest, the meticulous work of investigators, the cooperation of key witnesses, and the continuing support of the full Senate. Public support for the investigation remained strong even when a series of confrontations between the Watergate Committee and the White House provoked a constitutional crisis.
Throughout the inquiry President Nixon rebuffed the committee’s requests for access to information. Claiming a constitutional separation of powers, he refused to allow his aides to testify. Senator Ervin insisted that executive privilege could not be extended to cover criminal behavior and he threatened to authorize the sergeant at arms to arrest White House aides who refused to testify. Conceding to public pressure, the president allowed his aides to cooperate but continued to deny the committee access to presidential papers. Nixon repeatedly declared that he knew nothing about the Watergate burglary, but former White House counsel John Dean III testified that the president had approved plans to cover up White House connections to the break-in. Another former aide, Alexander Butterfield, revealed that the president maintained a voice-activated tape recorder system in various rooms in the White House.Chairman Ervin requested access to the tapes, believing that they would either corroborate or repudiate testimony that the president had knowledge of, and approved efforts to cover up, the Watergate break-in. Senate Resolution 194authorized the committee to “issue subpoenas for documents, tapes and other material to any officer of the executive branch,” and the committee subpoenaed the tapes and documents. Nixon refused to comply, citing executive privilege and separation of powers. Senator Ervin rebutted that “the select committee is exercising the constitutional power of the Senate to conduct the investigation, and the doctrine of the separation of powers of Government requires the President to recognize this and to refrain from obstructing the committee.” Vice Chairman Howard Baker (R-TN) proposed that the committee take the president to court. On August 9, 1973, the committee took the unprecedented step of suing the president in federal district court for access to the tapes and other documents. The court dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction and appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling. In early 1974 Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski asked the committee to postpone releasing its final report so as to not unduly influence the criminal cases he was preparing against former White House staff. The House Judiciary Committee launched an impeachment inquiry. In light of these developments, members of the Senate committee voted unanimously on February 19, 1974, to conclude public hearings and complete the committee’s remaining tasks in private sessions. |
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