Tapes can bring down a Presidency

When I first heard that the CIA had destroyed interrogation videotapes, despite a 2005 federal court ORDER that our government “preserve and maintain all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees” at Guantánamo, my first thought was of Richard Nixon.

Gather round young 'uns while I tell you a story:

Once upon a time, long ago and not so far away, there was a U.S. President who very much wanted to win another 4 year term. He had a little trouble during his first four years: a war in Vietnam that he tried to win with a surge of troops and escalated bombing, poor race relations, rioting on college campuses and on the streets, polluted air and polluted rivers. To get a little edge on his political opponent, operatives for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) hired five men to burglarize the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office building complex in Washington, D.C. The burglars were caught with bugging devices in hand. Eventually, tenacious reporting and Congressional investigations began to tie the burglars to the White House. John Dean, a White House aide, testified that he had talked about the event with President Nixon, and Nixon had talked about getting a million dollars together to silence the burglars. The White House denied any prior knowledge of the burglary and any cover-up of the event because any conversation with Dean would have been captured on tape . Tape? There are tapes of conversations in the Oval Office? Congress subpoenaed the tapes, Nixon claimed "executive privilege" and a long legal struggle ensued. The President fired the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who had subpoenaed the President for the tapes, and a Houstonian named Leon Jaworski later became special prosecutor on the condition that the President could not fire him. In the summer of 1974, Jaworski also subpoenaed the tapes, the appellate courts affirmed that the President must comply, and the House Judiciary Committee recommended that Richard Nixon be impeached. Rather than face impeachment, President Nixon resigned.

I know that sounds like a John Grisham novel, but even he couldn't make this stuff up.

Here's the bottom line: Richard Nixon was a hard, driven, powerful politician. He was in control of the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force and the Coast Guard. He controlled the Justice Department, the CIA, the FBI and all offices in the Executive Branch. Richard Nixon was master of his domain. Yet, even he did not destroy the tapes that eventually proved him a liar.

And that's why I thought of Richard Nixon when I learned that Bush-era CIA interrogation tapes (that were under court order to be preserved) were gathered up and destroyed. In 1974, Senator Howard Baker wanted to know "what the President knew, and when." Today, we should ask the same.