The Rest of the Story

Nixon was a cancer, but the whole lovefest with Mark Felt over the past few weeks has been sickening. Felt was no hero - he was a lawbreaking crook, just like the President he helped bring down.

One former federal prosecutor remembers Felt:

The news that W. Mark Felt, former deputy director of the FBI, is "Deep Throat" -- that it was he who played a key role in exposing and bringing to justice the people who authorized the 1972 Watergate break-in -- came as an unexpected revelation to many. But it was particularly unexpected for me, because, together with others, I prosecuted Mark Felt for a series of illegal and unconstitutional break-ins that he had authorized.

In late 1972 and early 1973, during the same period when he was investigating the Watergate break-in, Felt authorized FBI agents in New York and New Jersey to break into and search the homes of friends or relatives of fugitives associated with the Weather Underground, a radical, violent antiwar organization. These friends and relatives were innocent of any wrongdoing. There was no probable cause to conduct the searches. There was no search warrant authorizing them. And they were clearly illegal.

With Felt's authorization, teams of agents clad in old clothes picked locks or bribed landlords and searched these people's homes. They searched thoroughly: desks, beds, closets, etc. Using a document camera, they photographed a diary, a love letter, a Valentine's Day card, statements of personal philosophy and other documents. When they were done, they put everything back in place so that no one would know they had been there.