John Dean (person)

John Dean became the Counsel to the President of the United States in July of 1970 when he was thirty-one years old. As Counsel, he served as President Nixon's lawyer.

In 1971, he successfully lobbied President Nixon to nominate William Rehnquist for the Supreme Court, a justice who would later preside over Bill Clinton's impeachment trial and lead the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to shut down the Florida recount during the controversial 2000 presidential election.

Here's a brief timeline showing John Dean's role in the Watergate scandal.

On June 17, 1972, five burglars were arrested during a burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in downtown Washington, D.C.

On August 30, 1972, President Nixon said that John Dean had investigated the burglary, and had found that the White House was not involved.

On March 19/23, 1973, one of the Watergate burglars (James W. McCord) wrote a letter to the judge that convicted them for the burglary (Judge John Sirica) claiming that they had pled guilty under duress, that they had given false testimony under pressure from both John Dean and the Attorney-General, John Mitchell.

On April 6, 1973, John Dean switched sides and started cooperating with the Watergate prosecutors.

On April 30, 1973, Nixon announced that John Dean was dismissed from his position at the White House.

On June 25, 1973, John Dean gave a stunning testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee. He revealed that the now former Attorney-General John Mitchell had approved the Watergate burglary with the knowledge of White House advisers John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman. He even implicated President Nixon in the subsequent cover-up and referred to "a cancer growing on the presidency." (This was also the testimony in which he popularized the phrase "at this point in time.") His testimony destroyed much of the administration's credibility with the American public and widened the scope of the Watergate investigation far beyond its original boundaries.

Since returning to private life, John Dean has written many books, including two books about Watergate and the Nixon White House: Blind Ambition and Lost Honor. He is currently a writer and public speaker.

During the Clinton impeachment, John Dean worked as an on-air commentator for MSNBC.