The Watergate investigation is very complicated between all the lies and cover ups. The investigation started after congress voted on February 7th, 1973 to create an investigation committee on Watergate. The voting results were 77-0. The hearings were broadcast on national television from May 17 to August 7, 1973. If it wasn't for a piece of evidence on James McCord at the time of the break in a connection between the Whitehouse and Watergate may not have been found. In McCord's notebook police found the phone number of E. Howard Hunt who was a former employee of the Whitehouse. This piece of evidence encouraged many to look further into Watergate.
Woodword and Bernstein
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward played a huge role in unraveling the Watergate Scandal. Woodward learned of Hunt's phone number being in McCord's address book at the time of the burglary. After a series of phone calls he is finally able to contact Hunt and asks him why this is Hunt screams, "Good God!" and says he has no comment then he slams down the phone and goes into hiding. Woodward is now certain that the Whitehouse was involved in the break in. This sort of thing is what Woodward and Bernstein did. They also had an inside informant in the FBI who was anonymously known as "Deep Throat". Deep Throat gave Bernstein and Woodward many leads and confirmed many theories. Woodward and Bernstein were relentless in investigating Watergate. They shed light on it and brought it to everyone's attention and made the people curious. Without the work of these two men it may not have been worth congresses attention to create an investigation committee.
THE tapes
White House assistant Alexander Butterfield was being questioned in court and eventually buckled under the pressure of the court and told the court of the tape recording system that automatically records every conversation in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, as well as other rooms. The court demanded Nixon turn the tapes over and Nixon's lawyers claimed that the Commander in Chief had a right to wiretap at will without a warrant. Nixon's lawyers lost and the court ruled that even the President had to obey the fourth amendment. As the president was forced to turn over the tapes one tape in particularly proved that Nixon knew about the Watergate Break In and he also tried to cover it up.
Saturday Night Massacre
Attorney General Elliot Richardson hired Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor for the Watergate break in. He was also a Career Reserve in the Justice Department which meant that only the Attorney General could fire him unless there was just cause (illegal acts). Cox put Nixon under pressure to turn over the tapes and Nixon refused and demanded Richardson fire Cox and Richardson refused and resigned as Attorney General. Nixon then demanded Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox who also refused and resigned. Nixon had enough of this and fired Cox himself which the court then declared illegal for lack of a just cause. This was on October 20th, 1973 and was the beginning of the end of Nixon. After the Saturday Night Massacre every senator's phone in the state was ringing off the hook mainly of people demanding impeachment of President Nixon. In the days that followed resolution 21 was introduced to congress and discussion of impeachment started.
Nixon resigns
To avoid impeachment Richard Nixon resigned on August 8th, 1974. He was the first president to resign from office. One month later to the day on September 8th, 1974 President Ford pardons Richard Nixon for everything he may or may not have done in regards to the Watergate scandal.