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Us Vs Nixon Case Study

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The case behind the Watergate scandal is the supreme court case “United States vs. NIxon.” This is a famous case because president Nixon was the one being accused. It all started in June of 1972 when a handful of men came armed with bugging equipment and cameras into the Watergate hotel. They worked for president Nixon. Their mission was to bug a democratic committee office. Nixon was trying to eavesdrop on his competition in the election. The men were caught and arrested. It wasn’t until 1973 that Nixon was accused of being apart of the scandal. Investigators discovered that NIxon installed a recording device that automatically saved his conversations with the men involved with the scandal. Nixon refused to release any of the tapes. He claimed …show more content…

The petition between both sides were clear. The United States was the Plaintiff. They are claiming that executive power is not absolute. Nixon was the defendant. He claimed that executive privilege is absolute.
The question of the court was, “Is the president's right to safeguard certain information, using his “executive privilege” confidentiality power, entirely immune from judicial review.” On july 24, 1974 The supreme court ruled against Nixon and in favor of The United States. The justices were, Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell. It came down to 8-0, all the justices voted in favor of the United States. Burger was the one who wrote the majority opinion. He wrote that, “Presidents do enjoy a constitutionally protected executive privilege, but that privilege is not absolute.” After the case was final, Richard Nixon released all of the tapes. It was confirmed that he was involved with the watergate scandal. He had contact with the men that he ordered to bug the committees office. He shortly resigned after everything releasing the tapes. He became known as the first president to resign in history. This case is very famous and will go down in history forever. It was reenacted in one of my favorite movies, Forrest

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