United States v. Nixon

The Cover-up:

1. Regardless of the outcome, should the President of the United States have a right to privacy in regards to the Oval Office tapes? Explain.
I believe that the President of the United States definitely should not have the right to privacy in regards to the Oval Office Tapes. This is because, regardless of the right of privacy, the tapes were an extreme significance to the Watergate Crisis and was an extremely valuable piece of evidence. If the president were to be committing illegal crimes, and such news like the evidence of the existence of the tapes were leaked, the President should not have the right to deny this evidence because it is his own privacy because it will help determine the justice that should be served in the case. And anyways, if the president is denying any access to a piece of evidence, it is probably because the evidence is not in their favor which just proves that the evidence should be leaked to find this justice.

2. Was President Nixon justified when he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox? Explain.
I believe that President Nixon was not justified. At this point Nixon had been abusing his power in office. He basically was saying "I don't like the way this court case it going, so I'm just going to put an end to it by firing those associated with trying to force me into giving up the tapes." When he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox he had only done this because Cox had been trying to get him to release the evidence of the tapes and was determined on doing so. Therefore Nixon fired him and had intervened with justice that could have been served by releasing the tapes.


3. Was Nixon creating a Constitutional crisis by refusing to hand-over the tapes? Explain.
Yes he was. By refusing to hand-over the tapes to the Court he had basically been saying screw you to the judicial branch and acting as if the executive branch had more power over the judicial when it reality all the branches had equal power of course. Nixon's action's led Congress to question whether the President had the authority or right to keep the tapes.

Closure:

4. Why do you think the American public was so outraged by Watergate?
The American Public was so outraged by the Watergate Crisis most likely because the plumbers, the five men acting in the watergate robbery, were paid 25,000 dollars of the CREEP's fundraiser money that had been donated by the American public. Basically, the Watergate incident was funded by the money of the american public for illegal purposes. Another reason for the outrage of the American Public would be the fact that president Nixon had deliberately lied to the American Public by stating that he had no business in the Watergate business and denied any knowledge of the crime. However when the tapers were released, the government was able to discover what Nixon knew and when he knew it; Nixon had known about the Watergate incident two days before his announcement to the public stating he knew nothing of it. Therefore the public now knew the president was lying to them, outraging them.


5. Do you think President Nixon should have resigned? Explain.
I do think it was smart of President Nixon to resign before he could have been impeached. There was no way that Nixon was going to come out of the case winning, there was too much evidence against him. Therefore by resigning he is saving himself the embarrassment and shame of being impeached. Therefore by resigning he has saved himself some pride, compared to feeling the shame of being impeached.

6. Do you think President Nixon should have been prosecuted? Explain.
I definitely do feel that President Nixon should have been prosecuted because of the illegal crimes he had been committing. Nixon had been committing these crimes for a long time during his presidency, the Watergate Crisis is only an example of one crime he committed that had finally gone wrong. Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in, however he continued to deny any involvement of himself or his administration. He had been lying to the Supreme Court and the American public, and therefore obstructing justice. Also throughout the crisis had had been obstructing crisis. For example he tried to force the CIA to get the FBI to stop the investigation, he fired Cox just because things in the case were not going his way and he did not want to give up the tapes that Cox had been so determined on obtaining, and he had refused to hand over the tapes and therefore had been abusing his power in office. Just because Nixon is president he should not be treated any differently in this case because he had been obstructing justice, and therefore should have been punished.