{"id":11346,"date":"2007-07-05T12:42:35","date_gmt":"2007-07-05T16:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11346.html"},"modified":"2007-07-05T12:42:35","modified_gmt":"2007-07-05T16:42:35","slug":"thompson-was-a-mole-for-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/thompson-was-a-mole-for-the-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Thompson was a mole for the White House’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fred Thompson’s political resume is a little on the thin side. He was a senator who developed a reputation for avoiding hard work; he was a high-priced corporate lobbyist, though that probably won’t help much on the campaign trail; he was an assistant U.S. Attorney almost 40 years ago; and in 1973, he was minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee.<\/p>\n

That last one is apparently a point of some pride for the actor\/lobbyist\/lawyer. On his exploratory website, Thompson boasts<\/a> that he “gained national attention” as the “hard-charging counsel” who took the “lead” in revealing the audio-taping system in Nixon’s Oval Office.<\/p>\n

It all sounds quite impressive — just so long as you overlook the fact that Thompson was actually relentlessly partisan<\/a> and anxious to protect<\/i> Nixon during the Watergate investigation.<\/p>\n

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight — asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system — he telephoned Nixon’s lawyer.<\/p>\n

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, “At That Point in Time,” Thompson said he acted with “no authority” in divulging the committee’s knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon’s resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson’s actions.<\/p>\n

“Thompson was a mole for the White House,” Armstrong said in an interview. “Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thompson may want to update that bio page on his exploratory website. He seems to have left out a few details.
\n
\nFirst, Thompson claims to have taken the “lead” in revealing the audio-taping system in Nixon’s Oval Office. That’s false.<\/p>\n

[W]hile Thompson’s question to presidential aide Alexander Butterfield during a Watergate hearing unveiled the existence of the taping system to the outside world, it wasn’t Thompson who discovered that Nixon was taping conversations. Nor was Thompson the first to question Butterfield about the possibility.<\/p>\n

On July 13, 1973, Armstrong, the Democratic staffer, asked Butterfield a series of questions during a private session that led up to the revelation. He then turned the questioning over to a Republican staffer, Don Sanders, who asked Butterfield the question that led to the mention of the taping system.<\/p>\n

To the astonishment of everyone in the room, Butterfield admitted the taping system existed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Second, Thompson claims he pushed for release of Nixon’s tapes because he was a “hard-charging counsel.” That’s false.<\/p>\n

Thompson, in his 1975 memoir, wrote that he believed “there would be nothing incriminating” about Nixon on the tapes, a theory he said “proved totally wrong.” […]<\/p>\n

Even as he quizzed Butterfield during the hearing, Thompson said later, he believed the tapes would exonerate Nixon, so he saw no problem in pressing for their release.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And third, Thompson was so recklessly partisan, he improperly leaked everything he could to his allies in the Nixon White House.<\/p>\n

When Thompson learned of Butterfield’s admission, he leaked the revelation to Nixon’s counsel, J. Fred Buzhardt .<\/p>\n

“Even though I had no authority to act for the committee, I decided to call Fred Buzhardt at home” to tell him that the committee had learned about the taping system, Thompson wrote. “I wanted to be sure that the White House was fully aware of what was to be disclosed so that it could take appropriate action.”<\/p>\n

Armstrong said he and other Democratic staffers had long been convinced that Thompson was leaking information about the investigation to the White House. The committee, for example, had obtained a memo written by Buzhardt that Democratic staffers believed was based on information leaked by Thompson.<\/p>\n

Armstrong said he thought the leaks would lead to Thompson’s firing. “Any prosecutor would be upset if another member of the prosecution team was orchestrating a defense for Nixon,” said Armstrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Thompson now believes his performance during this ordeal helps prove his qualifications to be president.<\/p>\n

If you like George W. Bush, you’ll love<\/i> Fred Thompson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fred Thompson’s political resume is a little on the thin side. He was a senator who developed a reputation for avoiding hard work; he was a high-priced corporate lobbyist, though that probably won’t help much on the campaign trail; he was an assistant U.S. Attorney almost 40 years ago; and in 1973, he was minority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}