{"id":539539,"date":"2021-05-25T10:21:08","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T14:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=539539"},"modified":"2021-05-25T10:21:15","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T14:21:15","slug":"hugh-hewitt-the-real-story-of-the-most-famous-political-scandal-in-u-s-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hugh-hewitt-the-real-story-of-the-most-famous-political-scandal-in-u-s-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugh Hewitt: The Real Story Of \u2018The Most Famous Political Scandal\u2019 In U.S. History"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhugh-hewitt-the-real-story-of-the-most-famous-political-scandal-in-u-s-history%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=539539&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Hewitt-1200x800-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>In the latest 5-minute video for PragerU, radio host and columnist Hugh Hewitt breaks down the real and little-known history of Watergate, the most famous political scandal in U.S. history.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even though many people know Watergate involved an illegal break-in, says Hewitt, if you were to ask most any person to try and explain the scandal, they\u2019d likely draw a blank. But what most people don\u2019t know, he argues, is that Watergate was \u201cfirst and foremost\u201d part of a political war between a Republican president and the mainstream media.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Hewitt offers three reasons for why the media had it out for President Richard Nixon: The elites despised him, and the Washington, D.C., press corps were members of the elite; Nixon was a staunch anti-communist at a time media types believed the communism threat was \u201coverblown\u201d; and Nixon refused to abandon South Vietnam in the war against communism at a time when media types were anti-war.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>So why did the Watergate scandal blow up the way that it did? Hewitt argues that had Nixon\u2019s people simply owned up to its role in the scandal, the whole ordeal may have just blown over. But because Nixon failed to mount an effective response, the scandal grew from minor to major.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThree men made sure of that,\u201d argues Hewitt. \u201cA publicity-seeking judge\u201d named John Sirica, a \u201cvengeful\u201d FBI official named Mark Felt, and \u201ca partisan special prosecutor\u201d named Archibald Cox.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cSuspecting a vast conspiracy, Sirica threatened the burglars with lifetime prison sentences if they didn\u2019t rat out the people who authorized the crime,\u201d says Hewitt.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Meanwhile, the FBI official \u201cthought that he deserved to become head of the FBI\u201d and started leaking tips to Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward after Nixon overlooked him for the position. \u201cMeeting secretly, he told them where to look and what questions to ask. Without him, the duo would have gotten nowhere,\u201d Hewitt says.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWith Sirica applying pressure from the bench and Felt from inside the FBI, the White House defenses began to weaken, then crack, and then shatter,\u201d says Hewitt.&nbsp;<\/span><span>Then once Cox appointed Democratic lawyers to investigate the Nixon administration, the president effectively found himself in political quicksand from which he could not escape.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhen it emerged that many of Nixon\u2019s private conversations were recorded, his fate was sealed. Citing executive privilege, he tried to keep the tapes from Sirica and Congress. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled against the president,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Less than a month later, Nixon resigned \u2014 the only U.S. president to ever do so.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe media had its victory, and a newfound sense of power. The country has not been the same since,\u201d says Hewitt.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>WATCH:&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Watergate | 5 Minute Video\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VgOGDAfSUZc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest 5-minute video for PragerU, radio host and columnist Hugh Hewitt breaks down the real and little-known history of Watergate, the most famous political scandal in U.S. history.\u00a0Even &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312927,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Hewitt-1200x800-1.png","fifu_image_alt":"Hugh Hewitt: The Real Story Of \u2018The Most Famous Political Scandal\u2019 In U.S. History","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Hewitt-1200x800-1.png","fifu_image_alt":"Hugh Hewitt: The Real Story Of \u2018The Most Famous Political Scandal\u2019 In U.S. History","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}