Podcast appearances and mentions of John W Dean

Amid recent political controversies surrounding Donald Trump, Vick Mickunas thought it would be appropriate to highlight a past interview with John W. Dean, the author of 'The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It'. BONUS SEGMENT: Vick Mickunas fondly remembers cowboy poet Baxter Black.

"The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration.The Office of Counsel to the President and Vice President was created in 1943, and is responsible for advising on all legal aspects of policy questions; legal issues arising in connection with the President's decision to sign or veto legislation, ethical questions, financial disclosures; and conflicts of interest during employment and post employment. The Counsel's office also helps define the line between official and political activities, oversees executive appointments and judicial selection, handles presidential pardons, reviews legislation and presidential statements, and handles lawsuits against the president in his role as president, as well as serving as the White House contact for the Department of Justice."(This is the definition provided by the website Wikipedia)If ever anyone in the history of employment ever failed anymore totally at the job description provided in the hand book than John W. Dean, I would like to know who it was.  His entire job description can be summed up in shorthand like this"Sit there and when you hear something that sounds illegal, say Mr. President, you can't do that" That is all you have to do, I mean really how hard can it be?  John Dean not only did not do that, he actively made himself the "desk officer of the cover up" , and when he goes up to Camp David to write the report the President has asked him to write, he suddenly realizes all roads filter into one that leads from the Committee to Re-elect the President to the White House Staff itself, like the middle of an hourglass, through one "poison line".....HIM. So what does he do, he shops a deal, at first to the career prosecutors who want nothing to do with  it, and then to the Ervin Committee.  That committee totally controlled by the Democratic Party, leap at the chance to embrace "The Chief Desk Officer of the Cover up" All of this occurs while another force emerges and enters the battlefield.  This force more sinister than anything Richard Nixon has had to face since the North Vietnamese gave up in Paris. A force determined that they would destroy Richard Nixon using any tool, distortion, lie, or sleight of hand they could engineer;  they were the partisan lawyers who made up the staff of the Watergate Special Prosecutors Task Force and it is their sinister rise that begins in this episode. 

This month, a series of excerpts from 18 recorded interviews between investigative journalist Bob Woodward and President Trump for Woodward’s book, Rage, were released. As many of you know, Bob Woodward, who was a young reporter with The Washington Post back in 1972, teamed up with another investigative reporter, Carl Bernstein to report on the Watergate scandal, ultimately leading to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. In his book, Woodward interviewed President Trump on a variety of topics, including the threat of the coronavirus and Black Lives Matter. One of the more controversial revelations was from the recording on February 7th when Woodward asked about the threat of the coronavirus-President Trump responded, “It's also more deadly than your, you know, your even your strenuous flus. This is deadly stuff.” Meanwhile, on February 27th, during a White House press conference, the president was telling the American public something very different. So did the president knowingly keep this information from Americans? On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, host Craig Williams and guest co-host Bob Ambrogi are joined by historian Jim Robenalt, litigation partner at Thompson Hine LLP and John Dean, former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon, as they discuss the controversial excerpts from Bob Woodward's interviews with President Trump, the parallels to the Watergate scandal through these recently released "Trump Tapes,” and how these revelations could impact the president before the election. Special thanks to our sponsors, Blue J Legal and LEX Reception. Source: The Legacy of Watergate Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers by John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer (Melville House Books) January 1973: Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month That Changed America Forever by James Robenalt Rage by Bob Woodward

This month, a series of excerpts from 18 recorded interviews between investigative journalist Bob Woodward and President Trump for Woodward’s book, Rage, were released. As many of you know, Bob Woodward, who was a young reporter with The Washington Post back in 1972, teamed up with another investigative reporter, Carl Bernstein to report on the Watergate scandal, ultimately leading to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. In his book, Woodward interviewed President Trump on a variety of topics, including the threat of the coronavirus and Black Lives Matter. One of the more controversial revelations was from the recording on February 7th when Woodward asked about the threat of the coronavirus-President Trump responded, “It's also more deadly than your, you know, your even your strenuous flus. This is deadly stuff.” Meanwhile, on February 27th, during a White House press conference, the president was telling the American public something very different. So did the president knowingly keep this information from Americans? On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, host Craig Williams and guest co-host Bob Ambrogi are joined by historian Jim Robenalt, litigation partner at Thompson Hine LLP and John Dean, former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon, as they discuss the controversial excerpts from Bob Woodward's interviews with President Trump, the parallels to the Watergate scandal through these recently released "Trump Tapes,” and how these revelations could impact the president before the election. Special thanks to our sponsors, Blue J Legal and LEX Reception. Source: The Legacy of Watergate Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers by John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer (Melville House Books) January 1973: Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month That Changed America Forever by James Robenalt Rage by Bob Woodward

On this edition of Parallax Views, authoritarianism has been a hot topic since the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States in 2016. But there's actually a rich history of social science studies interrogating the dilemma of the authoritarian personality. In fact, according to our guest on this edition of the program, there's over half a century worth of research on the authoritarian personality type. John W. Dean, a former White House Counsel under President Richard Nixon who testified to Congress in the Watergate hearings, joins us to discuss his new book, co-authored with Bob Altemeyer, entitled Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers. In this fascinating conversation, John and begin by referencing the work of Hunter S. Thompson and his idea of "Fear and Loathing" in politics being apropos of the current zeitgeist. John then details the different types of authoritarian personality types: social dominators, authoritarian followers, and "double highs". We discuss each of these type and how, despite key differences between them, they have coalesced in the era of the Trump Presidency. In this regard, we take some time to delve into the connection between Right-Wing Authoritarianism and the evangelical Christian Right. John makes the case that these types of authoritarian personality types are either impossible to persuade or, at the very least, very hard to persuade. In other words, converting authoritarian personalities may prove a Sisyphean task. We also discuss conservatism, the GOP, and right-wing authoritarianism. John relates how Authoritarian Nightmare is a sequel of sort to his previous book Conservatives Without Conscience. The prequel to Authoritarian Nightmare, John says, was actually a planned collaboration betwen John Dean and 1964 GOP Presidential nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater. I ask John a bit about his time as a "Goldwater conservative" and John gives some anecdotes about Barry Goldwater in this regard. According to John, Goldwater was disillusioned with the direction the Republican Party was going in by the time of the Reagan Presidency in the 1980s. John argues that Goldwater was unfairly smeared as a racist, nativist conservative, but in reality was more or less  a libertarian. Jumping off from this point, John says that he can't really fault the GOP entirely for it's authoritarian voter base and that the base informs the make-up of the Party rather than the other way around. Before wrapping up John and I discuss whether Trump and his followers can really be considered conservative and if the GOP today is representative of a movement related to the historical tradition of political conservatism. We also chat about the similarities and differences between Richard Nixon and Donald Trump in this regard. All that and much more on this edition of Parallax Views. This Episode Brought to You By:The War State:The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite, 1945-1963byMichael SwansonofThe Wall Street Window

JOHN W. DEAN served as White House counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1973. During the Watergate scandal, his Congressional testimony helped lead to Nixon's resignation. Dean has written about Watergate in his New York Times bestsellers Blind Ambition and The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It. Among his other books are the national bestsellers Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience. He is a regular political and legal commentator on CNN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's episode features a massacre, though not necessarily the kind you would expect from this particular show. It relates indirectly to the presidency of one Donald Trump, but that's about as political as I would like for it to be. President Richard Nixon managed to avoid impeachment by resigning just before the articles of impeachment made their way through the House of Representatives into the U.S. Senate. The basic story is this: President Nixon wanted to prevent some damning audio tapes from being introduced into the investigation into the Watergate break-in and cover-up, so he tried to coerce his Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The resulting scandal is known as the Saturday Night Massacre. A lot of people are making connections between Nixon firing Archibald Cox and President Trump firing FBI Director James Comey, so I thought I would give a primer on the case. Here's a brief re-telling of that situation: Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox asked for several of Richard Nixon's dictabelt recordings in lieu of the investigation. Nixon turned down Cox's request for tapes featuring John W. Dean, citing "executive privilege" because he didn't think it was anybody's damn business. Richard Nixon, at first, tried to get AG Richardson to get Archibald Cox under control. Alexander Haig, Chief of Staff, met with AG Richardson to try to influence him to calm down Archibald Cox. At the same time, there was an investigation into VP Agnew regarding taking cash payouts. After a meeting on the subject, Nixon basically said to Elliot Richardson, "Now we have to get rid of Archibald Cox." Judge Sirica ordered for all of the subpoenaed tapes to be turned over. Nixon really wanted to get rid of Cox after that. He had his lawyer, Fred Buzhardt, to meet with AG Richardson and present a two-pronged plan: 1. Nixon would listen to the tapes and oversee transcripts being turned over. 2. Cox would have to be fired. Attorney General Richardson said he would rather resign than fire Archibald Cox. The compromise failed, and yet President Nixon attempted to persuade Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson ended up resigning and so did the acting Attorney General, William Ruckleshaus. The third-in-command, Robert Bork, ended up doing the dirty deed. The result ended up being called the Saturday Night Massacre. The Saturday Night Massacre was notable in and of itself, but it also signaled just how corrupted President Richard Nixon would be. If you're interested in checking out my books, please do. You can pick up a signed copy of my third novel, Dirt Merchant, at my personal Selz page or the local bookstore that's treated me SO well, Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN.

We have always been fascinated by the movies about the Mob such as The Godfather and Goodfellas. Author Charles Brandt, former homicide investigator joins the show to talk about Jimmy Hoffa and his... Experience the excitement and energy of Las Vegas each weekend on VEGAS NEVER SLEEPS with Steven Maggi.

John W. Dean, former legal counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, talks about his new book, "The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It," published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Nixon's resignation from office.

Former White House counsel, John W. Dean, moderates a discussion about the Watergate investigation and how evidence was found and used to persecute President Nixon. Panel guests include Scott Armstrong, Chief Investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee and Alexander Butterfield, the head of internal security at the White House at the time. Get an inside look at the evidence that caused President Nixon to resign, from two people who lived in the thick of it. Taped by Panther Productions at Chapman University.

John W. Dean, former counsel to the White House, is in the process of collecting and analyzing nearly 2,000 conversations that were recorded as the events of Watergate were unfolding. What did Nixon know and when? Dean describes his plan to make a dialogue out of these transcripts to tell the "Inside Watergate"story in an easily understandable way. He explains the political reforms that came out of the scandal, then fields questions from the audience (beginning at 15:45). Why didn't people use the 5th amendment during the trials? What was the process and logic that Dean went through as one of the biggest whistleblowers of all time? Taped by Panther Productions at Chapman University.