<\/p>\n
With the Watergate scandal gripping the nation, and President Richard Nixon on the verge of going down, a small team of federal prosecutors in Baltimore discover a bombshell that will rock a nation already on the edge. The Vice President of the United States\u2014 right at the height of Watergate\u2014has been conducting a secret bribery and extortion operation\u2026 from inside the White House itself. And only they know it.<\/em><\/p>\n For a list of sources and references for this episode, see here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n MADDOW: Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were officially sworn-into office for a second term on January 20th, 1973.<\/p>\n JOHN CHANCELLOR: And welcome to the 47th Inaugural of an American President. David Brinkley and I here to cover that, something the United States has been doing since 1789\u2026<\/p>\n The festivities that day were a celebration of what had just been a political annihilation.<\/p>\n Nixon got 520 electoral votes that year\u2026 George McGovern got 17.<\/p>\n The Nixon\/Agnew ticket won every state in the country, except Massachusetts.<\/p>\n Newly re-elected Vice President Agnew celebrated that night with his wife Judy at a party that was thrown in their honor at the Smithsonian:<\/p>\n JUDY AGNEW: This time, I know more or less what to expect!<\/p>\n NBC REPORTER: What do you expect, Mrs. Agnew?<\/p>\n JUDY AGNEW: Oh, what do I expect!<\/p>\n VICE PRESIDENT AGNEW: She expects to have fun!<\/p>\n JUDY AGNEW: Fun! Right! I expect to be much more relaxed this time! (laughing)<\/p>\n Spiro Agnew was in triumphant good spirits that night\u2026 blissfully unaware of the danger that was unfurling for him just a short drive up the Baltimore Washington Parkway.<\/p>\n In Baltimore, Maryland, just days before that inauguration, a team of three young, federal prosecutors were preparing to unleash a blizzard of federal subpoenas, with no warning.<\/p>\n TIM BAKER (FMR. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR): And we put together a team of IRS agents and we had all 50 subpoenas served on a Monday morning.<\/p>\n That\u2019s Tim Baker. One of the federal prosecutors who worked up these subpoenas, out of the US Attorney\u2019s office in Maryland.<\/p>\n These prosecutors were hoping to bust open a political bribery scheme in local Maryland politics.<\/p>\n In terms of who exactly they thought they would nab though, the expectations\u2013 at least early-on\u2013 were relatively low:<\/p>\n RON LIEBMAN (FMR. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR): And I think the general thinking was maybe we\u2019d be able to find a corrupt Congressmen, maybe a State Legislator. I think that\u2019s what, the level of expectation.<\/p>\n That\u2019s Ron Liebman, he was the second prosecutor on the team. And you can hear from him there that this was a little bit of a fishing expedition.<\/p>\n But these prosecutors did have one particular fish in mind: they were after the head of the County government. The Baltimore County Executive at the time, who was a Democrat named Dale Anderson.<\/p>\n BARNEY SKOLNIK (FMR. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR): The word is, you know, the word on the street, the rumor, the Scuttlebutt is that Dale Anderson is corrupt and is taking bribes.<\/p>\n That\u2019s Barney Skolnik, the lead prosecutor on the team.<\/p>\n What he and Tim Baker and Ron Liebman started to uncover evidence of was that corruption scheme that they\u2019d been hearing all these rumors about: that County Executive Dale Anderson was taking cash payoffs as bribes-and-kickbacks for handing out County contracts.<\/p>\n NBC REPORTER: Anderson was cited on 39 counts involving more than $46,000 in contracting kickbacks.<\/p>\n This local official Dale Anderson was their big fish and these prosecutors were now getting the goods on him and on this big bribery scheme in that specific County government.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing\u2026<\/p>\n The man who had Dale Anderson\u2019s job right before he did\u2026 was just then being sworn-in for his second term as Vice President of the United States.<\/p>\n NBC REPORTER: Off behind out of camera range, Vice President Agnew has just gotten into his limousine with Mrs. Agnew. The Presidential motorcade is lining up here on the south lawn of the White House.<\/p>\n Spiro Agnew\u2013 before he ever got to the White House\u2013 began his political career in that County. He had been Baltimore County Executive for four years, and now the guy who had that job right after him was being busted for taking bribes, in what was starting to look like a pretty slick, well-established, smooth-running bribery kickback and corruption criminal enterprise.<\/p>\n Had Vice President Agnew taken part in running that same criminal scheme while he was in that job?<\/p>\n What prosecutors didn\u2019t know at that moment, but what Spiro Agnew very much knew that night while he was celebrating his re-election at the Smithsonian\u2026<\/p>\n Is that not-only had he taken part in that same criminal scheme back then\u2026 in fact, he had just accepted an envelope stuffed with cash.<\/p>\n I\u2019m your host Rachel Maddow. And this is \u201cBag Man\u201d: the wild and untold story of the presidential line of succession, impeachment, indictment, and panic in the White House.<\/p>\n Episode 2: \u201cCrawling In\u201d<\/p>\n PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: As the new Attorney General, I have today named Elliot Richardson, a man of unimpeachable integrity and rigorously high principle.<\/p>\n Elliot Richardson had just become the new Attorney General of the United States in the Spring of 1973.<\/p>\n He had been Nixon\u2019s Secretary of Defense. He was Health Secretary before that.<\/p>\n But from the moment that he became the Attorney General, Elliot Richardson\u2019s life was consumed by the Watergate scandal.<\/p>\n ELLIOT RICHARDSON: I have decided that I will, if confirmed, appoint a special prosecutor and give him all the independence, authority, and staff support needed to carry out the tasks entrusted to him.<\/p>\n One of Richardson\u2019s closest aides at the time was a young lawyer named JT Smith:<\/p>\n JT SMITH (EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO AG ELLIOT RICHARDSON): He knew that Nixon was under a cloud. He didn\u2019t know what was in the tapes, but the White House didn\u2019t seem eager for the tapes to see the light of day. He knew that the mood in the White House on the part of the President and his staff was quite bleak.<\/p>\n That Summer though, Attorney General Elliot Richardson also knew something else. He held a secret that only a handful of people in the entire government knew.<\/p>\n In the middle of that summer\u2013 right in the middle of Watergate\u2013 Elliot Richardson got a visit from his U.S. Attorney in Maryland George Beall and Beall\u2019s team of three assistant U.S. Attorneys.<\/p>\n What those prosecutors brought to him that day was hard evidence that the sitting Vice President Spiro Agnew\u2026 was actively engaged in criminal activity.<\/p>\n These prosecutors had not set out to discover that, but they had launched an investigation into local corruption in Maryland and where that investigation ultimately led them\u2026 was inside the office of the Vice President.<\/p>\n SPIRO AGNEW: Ladies and gentlemen, I\u2019m Ted Agnew.<\/p>\n To the extent that Spiro Agnew is remembered in history, it\u2019s for this sort of vague sense that he went down over tax evasion or something sort of benign. What he actually did though was way worse than that, to the point of being sort of bonkers.<\/p>\n When he was Baltimore County Executive, Agnew had had the power to award local contracts. What prosecutors discovered\u2026 is that he was awarding those contracts almost exclusively to local businessmen who were paying him off. Who were delivering him cash bribes, literally stacks of bills stuffed into envelopes.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s Barney Skolnik, one of these federal prosecutors in Baltimore who helped crack the case:<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: The scheme, it doesn\u2019t even deserve the, you know, the appellation \u201cscheme\u201d. It wasn\u2019t a scheme, it was just a payoff.<\/p>\n When Agnew left that County Executive job and became Governor of Maryland, prosecutors learned that he took the payoff system with him. But then, of course, it wasn\u2019t just small-time local contracts he was controlling anymore. As Governor, of course he moved up to big state contracts.<\/p>\n And that required him to scale-up his criminal efforts. Here\u2019s Ron Liebman, another one of the prosecutors on the team:<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: When Agnew became Governor, it was explained to him you want a \u201cBag Man\u201d, you don\u2019t want to take directly, you want to insulate yourself. Because then it\u2019s just you against another person. And Agnew had at least one Bag Man, I think two, but he also took directly. He was greedy, absolutely greedy.<\/p>\n Agnew\u2013 as Governor\u2013 enlisted his State Roads Commissioner to start awarding state contracts to the firms that would pay Agnew off.<\/p>\n And \u2014 as advised \u2014 he also got himself a Bag Man: a longtime friend named Bud Hammerman. Bud\u2019s job was to personally go collect the money from the companies that just got the contracts.<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: The deal was the contractor would pay Hammerman. He\u2019s holding the money and paying the money directly to Agnew because he\u2019s one of the Bag Men.<\/p>\n What Agnew put in place as Governor was a slick well-run extortion ring.<\/p>\n Agnew himself would keep 50-percent of the cash.<\/p>\n His Roads Commissioner, who picked the contractors, and his Bag Man who leaned on them for the cash\u2026 they would each get to keep 25-percent. So, half for the two of them, half for the Governor. Here\u2019s Barney Skolnik:<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: I mean, taking large sums of cash in a succession of white envelopes\u2013 over and over and over again\u2013 is about as crass as it can be, you know, if you\u2019re a public official.<\/p>\n What prosecutors discovered that Spring was that this wasn\u2019t just some old scheme that Agnew had been running back in Maryland, which he then stopped when he became Vice President. What they discovered was that this was a scheme Agnew was still actively carrying out as Vice President of the United States\u2026 on the grounds of the White House itself!<\/p>\n The prosecutors discovered a local Baltimore businessman named Lester Matz. Matz told them that he\u2019d been making regular trips to the White House to secretly deliver cash to Agnew since Agnew had been in office as Vice President\u2026 in fact, starting pretty much immediately after Agnew was elected Vice President. Here\u2019s Ron Liebman explaining how it worked:<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: After the election, the Vice President\u2019s office, temporary office was in the, in the basement I think of the Old Executive Office Building. And Lester Matz went to see the Vice President-elect with an envelope stuffed with cash in his suit jacket pocket. And he walked in to see Agnew\u2013 as he told us the story and as I recall it\u2013 and one of them, I think maybe Agnew, pointed to the ceiling like, \u201cDon\u2019t say anything because we could be overheard or taped or something.\u201d And Lester Matz took out this envelope with $10,000 in cash, as I recall, stuffed envelope, and handed it to Agnew. Agnew took it, put it in the center drawer of his desk and closed his desk. And (laughs) when we heard that, we were just, couldn\u2019t believe it! I mean, I believed it, but I was just shocked, just shocked. And we all were, that kind of crass bribery.<\/p>\n These young prosecutors had discovered\u2013 at the height of the Watergate scandal\u2013 that the Vice President of the United States was committing his own crimes, on an ongoing basis, inside the White House.<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: I mean cash in white envelopes, I mean, that\u2019s crazy, to a Vice President.<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: I think we realized at that moment that we had a tiger by the tail.<\/p>\n It turned out that Agnew was also getting paid off by a Maryland engineering executive named Allen Green.<\/p>\n Green would make regular trips to the Executive Office Building right next to the White House. He would go into Agnew\u2019s office and hand Agnew plain envelopes stuffed with $2,000 in cash.<\/p>\n Allen Green told prosecutors he went to the White House three or four times a year, during the whole first term of the Nixon Administration! On each trip, he delivered Agnew thousands of dollars. Always in envelopes. Always in cash.<\/p>\n And prosecutors soon discovered that Agnew was secretly accepting illegal deliveries of cash inside his Vice Presidential residence, as well as in the White House.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019re wondering what all these businessmen were paying for when they were paying off Agnew, these prosecutors soon figured out that\u2013 where he could\u2013 Agnew was actually steering federal contracts to the businessmen who were now streaming into his office\u2013 and his apartment\u2013 with big wads of cash for him.<\/p>\n So it wasn\u2019t just a one-sided shakedown operation, it was a true quid-pro-quo, it was government\u2013 federal government\u2013 for sale.<\/p>\n These young guys from Baltimore had not set out to find this, but what they soon realized they had rock-solid evidence of was that the Vice President was running an ongoing bribery-and-extortion scheme from inside the White House:<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: It was shocking. I mean, all of a sudden, you know, this case involving perhaps payoffs in Baltimore County, Maryland, or maybe in Annapolis was going to become not only more significant, keep in mind Watergate\u2019s going on! So the President of United States, to put it mildly, is under a cloud. And here we three Baltimore federal prosecutors are being told that the next guy in line, the guy a heartbeat away, he\u2019s also under a cloud! So, it was shocking.<\/p>\n It was shocking and it was now time for them to do something about it. They realized they needed to tell the Attorney General about what they\u2019d uncovered.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s Barney Skolnik again, with producer with Mike Yarvitz.<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: I had in fact no doubt at all that we had a prosecutable case. The issue was: who the defendant was. If the defendant was \u201cJohn Smith\u201d, I had no doubt. I mean, I was a good enough prosecutor and an experienced enough prosecutor to know that when you have what we had, that\u2019s a case<\/p>\n MIKE YARVITZ: If it\u2019s \u201cJohn Smith\u201d, you\u2019ve got it locked up\u2013<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: You just indict.<\/p>\n YARVITZ: In this case, it was not \u201cJohn Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: In this case, you say to the Attorney General, \u201cwhat do you want us to do?\u201d<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t just posing that question to any Attorney General. This was going to see Richard Nixon\u2019s Attorney General.<\/p>\n Which meant giving a Presidential administration that was famous for covering-up political scandals\u2026 the chance to cover-up one more. That\u2019s next.<\/p>\n ********************************<\/p>\n Richard Nixon didn\u2019t exactly have a stellar track record when it came to the job of Attorney General.<\/p>\n By the Summer of 1973, Nixon had already lost two different Attorneys General in connection with Watergate.<\/p>\n JOHN CHANCELLOR: A witness at the Senate Watergate hearings today directly implicated former Attorney General John Mitchell in the Watergate bugging and cover-up\u2026<\/p>\n That Summer of \u201873, as Watergate was full-on boiling, a little team of federal prosecutors in Baltimore was facing the prospect of going to Washington to tell Richard Nixon\u2019s newest Attorney General Elliot Richardson some news that they knew would be an absolute disaster for the Nixon White House.<\/p>\n They were coming to Washington to tell him that\u2013 at the height of Watergate\u2013 the Vice President Spiro Agnew was conducting an active criminal scheme of his own from inside the White House.<\/p>\n These prosecutors were going to take that news to Nixon\u2019s Attorney General, knowing full well that he could do whatever he wanted with it. Here\u2019s prosecutor Barney Skolnik:<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: I had a very conscious, not just realization that it was possible, but that under all the circumstances, it was highly likely that he was going to say\u2013 perhaps for the most honorable of reasons\u2013 I mean, he probably wouldn\u2019t say \u201cShut it down\u201d, but he could say words that would amount to \u201cshut it down.\u201d<\/p>\n These three young Baltimore prosecutors and their boss, the U.S. Attorney George Beall\u2026 they all drove to DC and they went to go see the new Attorney General Elliot Richardson.<\/p>\n Not sure what to expect. Fearing the worst.<\/p>\n But they knew they could no longer keep to themselves this criminal secret about the Vice President.<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: We all drove in one car up the Baltimore Washington Parkway, July 3, 1973 game-planning how we\u2019re going to do this. \u201cGeorge is going to introduce us and then we\u2019re going to do this, and when we do this, we\u2019re going to do that. And when we do that, we\u2019re going to do this.\u201d So we get there, we\u2019re ushered up to the Attorney General\u2019s office, which to say \u201cimpressive\u201d is to understate it. And we wait and we wait.<\/p>\n BAKER: And then Richardson comes in and he\u2019s annoyed. You know, \u201cWhat\u2019s so important that I have to, you\u2019re interrupting my day and you won\u2019t even tell my secretary what it\u2019s about. What\u2019s so important?\u201d He\u2019s sitting there starting to take notes, but then more doodling and more and more impatient and just at the point where we\u2019re sure he\u2019s\u2013 the secretary comes in and gives him a note! He just up and leaves, no explanation, just gets up and leaves and he\u2019s gone for it seems like hours, probably 20 minutes.<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: The minute he leaves, of course we\u2019re saying, \u201cGeorge say this, say that!\u201d Then Richardson would come back in and George would begin. \u201cWell, we started in Baltimore County. We\u2019re thinking about corruption, none of this, the Attorney General needs or wants to hear! And when George gets a little closer to the Vice President, another note comes in, Elliot Richardson gets up and he leaves, doesn\u2019t say \u201cexcuse me\u201d, comes back. Richardson is clearly under pressure. And George says, \u201cOkay, now we\u2019re going to tell you why we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n BAKER: \u201cWe have evidence that Vice President Agnew took bribes as County Executive, Governor and even as Vice President.\u201d Now we have Richardson\u2019s attention (laughs)! And my job at that point, it was my job now to layout the evidence that we had. And he\u2019s very interested in the evidence. What he, of course, wants to know is: how good a case is this? And it\u2019s a good case. I mean, we\u2019ve got good stuff and we know it. I just start banging away on the \u201cso and so will testify and he\u2019s got documents and he\u2019s backed up by his vice presidents.\u201d Nail after nail after nail after nail.<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: I read his expression as saying, \u201cI need this right now, like I need another hole in the head.\u201d That was his expression like, \u201cJesus\u201d, you know, \u201cJesus, sweet Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n Put yourself in Elliot Richardson\u2019s shoes for a minute. He had just become Attorney General weeks earlier. He was overseeing the most sensitive investigation maybe in the history of the Justice Department, an ongoing, serious criminal probe of the President.<\/p>\n And here were these barely-out-of-law-school Baltimore prosecutors\u2013 who he\u2019s never met\u2013 telling him \u201cwe know you\u2019re investigating the President of the United States, but we need you to investigate the Vice President, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n If you were the Attorney General, would you take on that burden?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s JT Smith, Elliot Richardson\u2019s top aide:<\/p>\n SMITH: I remember Richardson after that meeting saying to me, you know, \u201coh my God.\u201d<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: You really were talking about a ship that\u2019s in bad shape and, you know, the captain\u2019s having a heart attack. And now the first mate, you\u2019re going to throw the first mate overboard. I mean, what\u2019s going to happen to the ship? It made the whole thing very heavy. You know, \u201cwhat\u2019s the right thing to do?\u201d<\/p>\n The Baltimore prosecutors raced to DC, they dropped that bombshell on Elliot Richardson during that meeting. And then they waited\u2026 and watched\u2026 to see how he would respond:<\/p>\n LIEBMAN: I remember watching Mr. Richardson\u2013 Elliot\u2013 very, very closely thinking, \u201cAlright, is this where he\u2019s going to say good work guys? Really, really good work. Thanks for coming in. Leave the files here. We\u2019ll see you later\u201d? And what he did was, he started crawling into the case. He just crawled into the case, \u201cSo, what about this? What are you going to do about that? Like he was a collaborator with us, which he was. He immediately crawled into the case with us. It was extraordinary.<\/p>\n In that meeting, without flinching, Elliot Richardson took on the unimaginable burden\u2013 think of this!\u2013 of overseeing an active criminal investigation of the President\u2026 and the Vice President\u2026 at the same time. Two different cases.<\/p>\n There is no telling what any other Attorney General might have done in that situation.<\/p>\n You could almost understand an Attorney General saying, \u201cI\u2019ve got this investigation that might bring down the President, I can\u2019t wipe out the Vice President, too. The country can\u2019t survive that.\u201d<\/p>\n But Elliot Richardson\u2019s response to these young prosecutors who cracked this case was\u2026 keep going\u2026 keep digging\u2026 he told them that he would now directly oversee their investigation. It would be conducted in-secret with the knowledge of only the people in that room.<\/p>\n The stakes were potentially taking out the President and the Vice President, which would effectively overturn an entire national election, which had been a landslide win for Nixon and Agnew. But Elliot Richardson\u2013 who had just gotten on the job\u2013 decided that he had to take on that burden. He had to.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how Barney Skolnik, one of the prosecutors remembers that meeting with Elliot Richardson even today\u2026 45 years later. The first voice you\u2019ll hear is producer Mike Yarvitz:<\/p>\n MIKE YARVITZ: What are your memories from that meeting, that first meeting with Richardson? What are you feeling going into that meeting?<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: This is something about which I can get very emotional. I went to that meeting as I think most people in my position would have. Um, we don\u2019t know him. I mean, I\u2019ve heard good things about him, but we don\u2019t know him and it\u2019s like very much with a, with a great sense of anxiety that we are going to say to him, \u201cHere, what do you want us to do?\u201d And then, you know, figuratively speaking, hold our breath until he tells us what he\u2019s going to tell us. Within um, the first few minutes of being with him, I knew, I think we all knew that we were in the presence of a very special human being. To me it is the single most, it\u2019s the key to this whole saga: If Elliot Richardson had not been the Attorney General at that particular time, Spiro Agnew would have become President in August of \u201874. I mean, I\u2019m certain of that.<\/p>\n These Baltimore prosecutors happened to draw as an Attorney General a figure in American political life who was equal to the moment. When how could you expect that of anyone?<\/p>\n Elliot Richardson was a Republican, decorated military veteran \u2014 he went ashore on D-Day \u2014 he was an ex-federal prosecutor himself. Unimpeachable integrity.<\/p>\n What began at that moment, in that meeting, with Elliot Richardson\u2019s decision\u2026 was an unprecedented emergency mission inside the Justice Department to oust the Vice President of the United States before it was too late. Before he ascended to the Presidency himself.<\/p>\n SKOLNIK: You know, we\u2019re talking about the Summer of \u201873, I mean Watergate hearings are going on. Everybody was conscious that Nixon\u2013 aside from being, you know, a \u201ccrook\u201d in his memorable word\u2013 might not last.<\/p>\n Watergate was beginning to reach a boil. The President might go down at any moment, either by resignation, or removal from office. And on top of that teetering drama, it was now on the Attorney General and this small team of federal prosecutors to somehow make sure that an active criminal wasn\u2019t next in line to replace him.<\/p>\n They had the criminal scheme in their sites. They had the evidence, by then pouring in. They had leadership that \u2014 almost unbelievably \u2014 proved to be unafraid of the stakes, and willing to see this through.<\/p>\n The only problem was: the man that they were about to take on\u2026 was not going to take any of it lying down.<\/p>\n VICE PRESIDENT AGNEW: I want to say at this point, clearly and unequivocally: I am innocent of the charges against me! (cheers\/applause)<\/p>\n Spiro Agnew was gearing up to wage war on this band of prosecutors.<\/p>\n And he knew that his real power base was the legion of supporters he had both in the public and in Congress, who loved what a hard-liner he was, who loved what a bomb-thrower he was, and who were willing to angrily support him basically through anything. No matter what Agnew got charged with.<\/p>\n They were ready to go to war with him.<\/p>\n SEN. CARL CURTIS (R-NE): Will you inform me what he\u2019s done? No one has! Now, that\u2019s not American justice \u2026 I don\u2019t think he should resign or he will resign!<\/p>\n That part of the story is next time.<\/p>\n \u201cBag Man\u201d is a production of MSNBC and NBC Universal. This series is executive produced by Mike Yarvitz. It was written by myself and Mike Yarvitz. Editorial and production support from Jonathan Hirsch and Marissa Schneiderman for Neon Hum Media. And you can find much more about this story on our website: msnbc.com\/bagman<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \n The post Transcript \u2013 Episode 2: Crawling In<\/a> appeared first on MS NOW<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can watch MSNBC online by subscribing to a streaming service that includes MSNBC, such as Hulu + Live TV, Sling, or Peacock<\/mark>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n Hulu + Live TV<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n <\/ul>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n Sling<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n <\/ul>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n Peacock<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n <\/ul>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div> This post<\/a> was originally published on this site<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KEEP MSNBC ON THE AIR: SUBSCRIBE With the Watergate scandal gripping the nation, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ms-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135749,"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135748\/revisions\/135749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinresists.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}[[[[[[[[[[[[[[SAVE MSNBC: JUST SUBSCRIBE TO IT<\/span><\/h2>\n
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