Buried Treasure: The Stennis Compromise

Skullduggery

Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Victoria Bassetti

Politics, White House, News Commentary, Government, Senate, Podcasts, President, House Of Representatives, News, Victoria Bassetti, Supreme Court, Michael Isikoff, Foreign Policy, Scandels, Yahoo News, Voting, Elections, Skullduggery, Daniel Klaidman

4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Journalist and historian Evan Thomas joins Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman on this episode of "Buried Treasure." The group discusses the Watergate scandal, Nixon, and how it relates to the unfolding story of Trump's now infamous recent phone call to the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. Will we ever see the transcript or hear the recording of Trump's call like we did the Nixon tapes?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	October 19, 1973 President Nixon is facing demands to turn over a crucial piece of evidence,
0:08.9	the tapes of his meetings and phone calls about the Watergate break-in.
0:13.3	Nixon resists, to do so, would violate the President's need to have confidential conversations
0:18.8	he contains.
0:20.4	So his White House floats a compromise.
0:23.0	Nixon will release a summary of those conversations, and then a Democratic Senator, 72-year-old
0:29.2	John Stennis of Mississippi, would listen to the actual tapes and authenticate the White
0:35.3	House version of what was said.
0:37.1	It was an almost comical idea at the time, the Septogenarian Stennis, was known to be
0:42.2	half-death.
0:43.9	And after special prosecutor Archibald Cox immediately rejected the idea, Nixon fired
0:49.3	him the next day, setting in motion the chain of events that led to his resignation.
0:54.1	It's an episode that seems newly relevant this week, after President Trump and an apparent
0:59.6	off-the-cuff remark suggested he might have a, quote, respected source, unquote, read
1:05.4	a transcript of his conversation with the President of Ukraine and authenticate that it was,
1:10.7	as he put it, quote, a beautiful conversation.
1:14.6	Is this the Stennis Compromise Redux?
1:17.5	We'll discuss with the Nixon Biographer on this episode of Buried Treasure.
1:24.5	Because people have got to know whether or not they're President of the crop, well,
1:31.8	I'm not a crop.
1:32.8	I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostage.
1:36.1	My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence
	...

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