John Wesley Dean III was born on October 14,1938 and is an American former attorney who served as White House Counsel for US President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973.
47 Facts About John Dean
2.
Shortly after the Watergate hearings, John Dean wrote about his experiences in a series of books and toured the United States to lecture.
3.
John Dean later became a commentator on contemporary politics, a book author, and a columnist for FindLaw's Writ.
4.
John Dean had originally been a proponent of Goldwater conservatism, but he later became a critic of the Republican Party.
5.
John Dean was born in Akron, Ohio, and lived in Marion, the hometown of the 29th President of the United States, Warren Harding, whose biographer he later became.
6.
John Dean's family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois, where he attended grade school.
7.
John Dean was employed from 1966 to 1967 as chief minority counsel to the Republicans on the United States House Committee on the Judiciary.
8.
John Dean then served as associate director of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws for approximately two years.
9.
John Dean volunteered to write position papers on crime for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968.
10.
In July 1970, he accepted an appointment to serve as counsel to the president, after the previous holder of this post, John Dean Ehrlichman, became the president's chief domestic adviser.
11.
Gray said he had given FBI reports to John Dean, and had discussed the FBI investigation with John Dean on many occasions.
12.
Gray's nomination failed and John Dean was directly linked to the Watergate cover-up.
13.
Haldeman later claimed that Nixon appointed John Dean to take the lead role in coordinating the Watergate cover-up from an early stage and that this cover-up was working very well for many months.
14.
On March 22,1973, Nixon requested that John Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter, inviting him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so.
15.
John Dean went to Camp David and did some work on a report, but since he was one of the cover-up's chief participants, the task put him in the difficult position of relating his own involvement as well as that of others; he correctly concluded that higher-ups were fitting him for the role of scapegoat.
16.
John Dean was receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving the vulnerabilities of other White House staff.
17.
John Dean continued to provide information to the prosecutors, who were able to make enormous progress on the cover-up, which until then they had virtually ignored, concentrating on the actual burglary and events preceding it.
18.
John Dean appeared before the Watergate grand jury, where he took the Fifth Amendment numerous times to avoid incriminating himself, and in order to save his testimony for the Senate Watergate hearings.
19.
On June 25,1973, John Dean began his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee.
20.
John Dean's testimony attracted very high television ratings since he was breaking new ground in the investigation, and media attention grew apace, with more detailed newspaper coverage.
21.
John Dean was the first administration official to accuse Nixon of direct involvement with Watergate and the resulting cover-up in press interviews.
22.
Nixon vigorously denied all accusations that he had authorized a cover-up, and John Dean had no corroboration beyond various notes he had taken in his meetings with the president.
23.
John Dean had had suspicions that Nixon was taping conversations, and he tipped prosecutors to question witnesses along this line, leading to Butterfield's revelations.
24.
John Dean failed to recall any conversations verbatim, and often failed to recall the gist of conversations correctly.
25.
John Dean admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list.
26.
Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was interested in meeting with John Dean and planned to do so a few days later, but Cox was fired by Nixon the next day; it was not until a month later that Cox was replaced by Leon Jaworski.
27.
Shortly after Watergate, John Dean became an investment banker, author and lecturer based in Beverly Hills, California.
28.
John Dean chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs Blind Ambition and Lost Honor.
29.
In 1992, John Dean hired attorney Neil Papiano and brought the first in a series of defamation suits against Liddy for claims in Liddy's book Will, and St Martin's Press for its publication of the book Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin.
30.
Silent Coup alleged that John Dean masterminded the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate coverup and that the true aim of the burglaries was to seize information implicating John Dean and the former Maureen "Mo" Biner in a prostitution ring.
31.
John Dean retired from investment banking in 2000 while continuing to work as an author and lecturer, becoming a columnist for FindLaw's Writ online magazine.
32.
In 2001, John Dean published The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court, an expose of the White House's selection process for a new Supreme Court justice in 1971, which led to the appointment of William Rehnquist.
33.
On March 31,2006, John Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring Bush over the issue.
34.
John Dean concludes that conservatism must regenerate itself to remain true to its core ideals of limited government and the rule of law.
35.
In 2008, John Dean co-edited Pure Goldwater, a collection of writings by the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and former US Senator Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals.
36.
Historian Stanley Kutler was accused of editing the Nixon tapes to make John Dean appear in a more favorable light.
37.
On September 17,2009, John Dean appeared on Countdown with new allegations about Watergate.
38.
John Dean said he had found information via the Nixon tapes that showed what the burglars were after: information on a kickback scheme involving the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida.
39.
John Dean asserts that Nixon did not directly order the break-in, but that Ehrlichman ordered it on Nixon's behalf.
40.
In speaking engagements in 2014, John Dean called Watergate a "lawyers' scandal" that, for all the bad, ushered in needed legal ethics reforms.
41.
John Dean later emerged as a strong critic of Donald Trump, saying in 2017 that he was even worse than Nixon.
42.
In February 2018, John Dean warned that Rick Gates's testimony may be "the end" of Trump's presidency.
43.
In September 2018, John Dean warned against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the United States Supreme Court, a main concern being that the appointment would result in "the most presidential-powers-friendly court" in modern times.
44.
John Dean commented on the removal in colorful terms, saying it "seems to be planned like a murder" and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller likely had contingency plans, possibly including sealed indictments.
45.
In early June 2019, John Dean testified, along with various US attorneys and legal experts, before the House Judiciary Committee on the implications of, and potential actions as a result of, the Mueller report.
46.
In 2022, John Dean said the January 6 Committee had an overwhelming case against Trump.
47.
John Dean frequently served as a guest on the former MSNBC and Current TV news program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Randi Rhodes Show on Premiere Radio Networks.