On June 17, 1972 Washington, DC police arrested five burglars at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate apartment complex. These men, employees of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), had broken in to tap phones and photograph documents. Their arrest was the first of many revelations of misconduct within the Nixon administration, culminating in one of the most serious abuses of presidential power in the nation’s history.

Though the Nixon administration denied any White House involvement in the burglary and dismissed it as a bungled attempt engineered by overzealous minions, the FBI eventually traced the burglary to sources within the administration. A few weeks later the Washington Post revealed that Attorney-General John Mitchell had managed secret funds to undermine Nixon’s political enemies by gathering damaging information, planting spies, forging letters, stealing campaign plans and feeding false information to the media.

The trial of the Watergate burglars and planners began in January of 1973, with Judge John Sirica presiding. Five pleaded guilty and two were convicted, upon which one of the burglars sent a letter to Sirica confirming that the White House had in fact been involved with the original break in. When Sirica called for further investigation, Watergate became a national story.

The Senate also began investigating Nixon’s campaign practices, creating a Special Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. The committee’s televised hearings began in May 1973, and for six months the nation watched a parade of witnesses uncover the crimes and plots of the administration, including burglary bugging, perjury, dirty tricks, tampering with judicial proceedings, political surveillance, shredding evidence, blackmail and granting executive clemency to those who stay silent. All of these were hatched in the Nixon White House, and the circle of corruption came ever closer to the president himself.

In October of 1973, Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned after being found guilty of cheating on his taxes and accepting bribes as both governor of Maryland and vicepresident.

As Nixon’s approval ratings continued to sink, the House Judiciary Committee began to gather evidence of presidential wrongdoing, a first step towards impeachment.

In March 1974, Judge Sirica’s grand jury indicted Nixon aides Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and four others for conspiracy to obstruct justice. White House Counsel John Dean pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge, and cooperated with the grand jury The grand jury’s sealed report named Nixon as an unindicted coconspirator, and in May 1974 the Senate Judiciary Committee began formal impeachment hearings.

Crucial to the committee’s investigations was the discovery that Nixon had recorded all conversations in the Oval Office, but it took the Supreme Court to force Nixon to submit these tapes. These provided the smoking gun that proved Nixon had ordered the cover-up of the Watergate burglary just six days after it had occurred, meaning that he had been lying to the public ever since. Faced with this evidence, Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974. One month later he was given a full pardon by President Ford.