Problem 1. TheWhite House Tapes On March 1, 1974, a grand jury indicted seven former aides to U.S. President Richard Nixon for attempting to cover up White House involvement in a burglary of th...
Problem 1. TheWhite House Tapes On March 1, 1974, a grand jury indicted seven former aides to U.S. President Richard Nixon for attempting to cover up White House involvement in a burglary of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington. On April 18, the judge in the case, John Sirica, issued a subpoena for tapes of President Nixon's conversations with the defendants. The President's attorney, James St. Clair, attempted to delay responding to the subpoena. The prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, then used an unusual procedure to appeal directly to the Supreme Court and request that the Court order the President to supply the tapes. The Court heard oral arguments on July 8, and the justices met on July 9 to decide the case. One justice, William Rehnquist, withdrew from the case, probably because he had worked in Pres- ident Nixon's Justice Department. Of the remaining eight justices, six quickly agreed to uphold the prosecutor's request. Two justices, Warren Burger and Harry Blackmun, were reluctant to up- hold the prosecutor's request, because they thought his direct appeal to the Supreme Court was improper. Also on July 9, President Nixon's attorney said that the President had "not yet decided" whether he would supply the tapes if the Supreme Court ordered him to. This statement was probably intended to pressure the Court into backing down from the confrontation. At minimum, it was probably intended to encourage some justices to vote against upholding the prosecutor's request. If the vote was split, the President could argue that it was not sufficiently definitive for a matter of this magnitude. Jaworski believed that in the event of a split vote, the President would 'go on television and tell the people that the presidency should not be impaired by a divided Court."