Rachel Maddow did a brilliant cold open last night about Trump and pardons and Nixon and Haldeman and criminal obstruction of justice. Her opening segment sometimes loses me, but this one was genius.

One part of it was about Camp David (complete with photos of various buildings there and explanation that they are named after trees and that the presidential building is called Aspen and sometimes people talk about the president at Aspen and they don’t mean the one in Colorado), and the fact that Bob Haldeman made a recorded diary entry at the end of every day as Chief of Staff, and he made one after a conversation with Nixon at Aspen right before the indictments and firings. It’s quite incriminating in places yet Haldeman dutifully described the whole thing on the tape, Maddow said in wonder.

Then the indictments came down. She showed us the Times headline for that day and said if anyone wanted to needlepoint her a Times headline that’s the one she would choose.

One evening in May Nixon called Haldeman on the phone (the one that recorded his phone calls).
The Times published part of the transcript of that conversation in 1997:

What better way to mark the anniversaries of Richard Nixon’s resignation (Aug. 9, 1974) and pardon by Gerald Ford (Sept. 8, 1974) than with this never-before-published transcript. The scene: Nixon’s Executive Office Building hideaway, May 18, 1973, the day after the Senate Watergate Committee’s televised hearings began. John Dean will soon testify that Nixon committed high crimes, and the long slide toward resignation will accelerate. As the final Watergate tapes released by the National Archives reveal, Nixon wanted to give three of his allies — H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell, who had all resigned by then — the greatest gift a President can bestow: a blanket pardon. According to Samuel Dash, chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee, this exchange, if known to the committee at the time, would have justified a separate article of impeachment all by itself. ”Even Haldeman,” he says, ”was trying to shut him up.”

According to Samuel Dash, chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee, this exchange, if known to the committee at the time, would have justified a separate article of impeachment all by itself. Maddow repeated that at least three times.

What better way to mark the anniversaries of Richard Nixon’s resignation (Aug. 9, 1974) and pardon by Gerald Ford (Sept. 8, 1974) than with this never-before-published transcript. The scene: Nixon’s Executive Office Building hideaway, May 18, 1973, the day after the Senate Watergate Committee’s televised hearings began. John Dean will soon testify that Nixon committed high crimes, and the long slide toward resignation will accelerate. As the final Watergate tapes released by the National Archives reveal, Nixon wanted to give three of his allies — H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell, who had all resigned by then — the greatest gift a President can bestow: a blanket pardon. According to Samuel Dash, chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee, this exchange, if known to the committee at the time, would have justified a separate article of impeachment all by itself. ”Even Haldeman,” he says, ”was trying to shut him up.”

Nixon: What I mean to say is this — talking in the confidence of this room … I don’t give a (expletive) what comes out on you or John (Ehrlichman) — even that poor damn dumb John Mitchell. There is gonna be a total pardon.

Haldeman: Don’t — don’t — don’t even say that.

Nixon: You know it. You know it and I know it.

Haldeman: Nope. Don’t say it.

Nixon: Forget you ever heard it.

Nope. Don’t say it. Why not? Because, Maddow said, it’s criminal obstruction of justice. That’s why not.