Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Watergate Scandal
- Major Political Scandal
- United States 1970s
- Result of:
- the Watergate Burglars
broke into the Democratic
Party’s National Committee
offices on June 17, 1972.
- Brought down Nixon
- Watergate
- general term used to describe a
complex web of political scandals
between 1972 and 1974.
- It refers to the Watergate
hotel in Washington D.C.
- The prowlers were
connected to President
Richard Nixon’s reelection
campaign
- they had been caught while
attempting to wiretap phones and
steal secret documents.
- Nixon knew about the
Watergate espionage
operation before it happened
- He raised “hush money” for the
burglars
- Attempts to delate evidences and
stop FBI investigation
- firing uncooperative
staff members
- Nixon administration's resistance
to its probes led to a constitutional
crisis
- Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI)
- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
- In August 1974,
after his role in
the Watergate
conspiracy had
finally come to
light, the president
resigned
- His successor,
Gerald Ford
- pardoned Nixon for all the
crimes he “committed or
may have committed”
while in office.
- Nixon was never
prosecuted
- the Watergate scandal changed
American politics forever,
leading many Americans to
question their leadership and
think more critically about the
presidency.