In Watergate, the Senate didn't begin public hearings until months AFTER the burglars were CONVICTED

[bigtree]

1973

* January 8
The trial of the Watergate Seven (Barker, Gonzalez, Hunt, Liddy, Martinez, McCord and Sturgis) begins in Washington. It is presided over by Judge John Sirica.

* January 11
Hunt pleads guilty.

* January 15
Barker, Gonzalez, Martinez and Sturgis plead guilty.

* January 30
Former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. Both had pleaded not guilty.

* February 7
The Senate votes (77-0) to create the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.

# March 19/23
James W. McCord WRITES A LETTER to Judge John Sirica in which he claims that the defendants had pleaded guilty under duress. He says they committed perjury and that others are involved in the Watergate break-in. He claims that the burglars lied at the urging of John Dean, Counsel to the President, and John Mitchell, the Attorney-General.

# April 6
John Dean, the White House Counsel, begins co-operating with the Watergate prosecutors.

# April 17
Nixon announces that White House staff will appear before the Senate Committee. He promises "major new developments" in the investigation and says there has been real progress towards finding the truth.

# April 17
An official statement from the White House claims Nixon had no prior knowledge of the Watergate affair.

# Easter Sunday
Nixon asks John Dean to prepare a report about the Watergate affair. He sends Dean to Camp David to write the report.

# April 30
Nixon appears on national television and announces the dismissal of Dean and the resignations of Haldeman and Erlichman, describing them as two of his "closest advisers". The Attorney-General, Richard Kleindienst, also resigns and is replaced by Elliot Richardson.

# May 17
The Senate Watergate Committee begins public hearings.


Charges which implicate Bush or Cheney in an impeachable crime really need to originate outside of the Congress for there to be enough of a wave of opposition within the present one to get a conviction. Interesting to note that Congress didn't begin to investigate and hold hearings on Watergate until after the principals were convicted and Nixon implicated in court; and that hearings and investigations have already begun in our own effort to hold this administration accountable without the benefit of any outside prosecution or conviction to buttress them.

[MissWaverly]

1. well, all rightey then, how about charges by the Brits

seems like they are hot on the trail of this Prince Bandar, BAE scandal.


:-)

[Kagemusha]

2. Uh no, the investigators got ordered off the trail, the office might get closed

The government is treating the matter as a state secret and the only investigation that's ongoing about it is the just-announced one by.... the Gonzales-led DoJ, unless you count the international body looking into the stench of corruption about it. But in terms of British domestic law enforcement, this is dead, deader, dead as a doornail.

The attorney general equivalent of the UK who was responsible for shutting the investigation down resigned yesterday or the day before or something, just before the new prime minister gets sworn in.

The trail may not be cold, but if no one has legal authority to pursue it, naught will come of it.

[MissWaverly]

3. what a shame, I have no hope for the Gonzo investigation

except I saw footage of him walking down the hall yesterday, he's looking pretty chipper now that the heat is on You Know Who
instead of him.

[Kagemusha]

4. Basically the only hope is the new PM, Gordon Brown

Because international anti-corruption organization types can't force Britain to take corruption seriously if it doesn't want to. Can shame it, tar and feather it, but not force its hand.

Hey. We'll see.

[MissWaverly]

5. well, it has to be an open and shut case

or our timid congress will not approach it.

[PCIntern]

6. Having lived thru every minute of Watergate

and watched it closely even after it was 'over'...there are many issues which are not obvious which were swept under the rug. The real motivations for removing Nixon from office are still murky andthere have been several books which have tried to set the record straight, such as Secret Agenda, but the NYT/WaPo version still takes precedence.

Just remember...the Rethugs on the committee were pandering to the Nixonians UNTIL THE TAPES WERE 'discovered'...also very complex situation. There were more than one copy of the tapes and wasn't it just amazing how virtually immediately, everyone knew where the incriminating conversations were on these thousands of hours of tapings. To the minute. Immediately...within hours.

[bigtree]

7. It was a complex series of events

it doesn't look like this Congress has the outside hook they need to give the charges floating around about Bush and Cheney the weight needed to allow them to build momentum toward impeachment. No Dean testifying in any outside prosecution . . . but we do have committees investigating right now, so . . .