It took some sleuthing but I finally found a file online of the United States Senate Watergate Committee’s official report. I have to warn you that it’s a massive .pdf file that takes a while to download. You should read it, if not today then at some point in your life. You’ll be staggered by the breadth of the corruption and criminality in the Nixon administration because I can almost guarantee you that you haven’t gotten a full sense of it from the way the Watergate scandal is usually described.
Try changing some of the words below. For Charles Colson, substitute the Russians or Donald Trump Jr. or Julian Assange. For E. Howard Hunt, substitute Roger Stone. For Daniel Ellsberg you can use Hillary Clinton. For Dr. Fielding’s office, try the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.
I think it’s useful to look at things in these terms to see why it isn’t necessary to prove that the Russian hacks changed the outcome of the election to determine that a lot of crimes were committed. No one thinks the Watergate burglaries changed the outcome of the 1972 election, but over sixty people were indicted, scores were convicted, and the president resigned.
