Free The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down by Geoff Shepard Page A

it were to occur, would constitute outright collusion and, if it were to become known, would certainly have resulted in removal of both parties from the Watergate cases, as well as disciplinary action up to and including disbarment. This sort of communication between prosecutors and judges, including ex parte meetings and submission of undisclosed—and therefore uncontestable—memoranda, would raise serious questions about Sirica’s impartiality and about whether the Watergate defendants were being accorded the fundamentals of due process of law.
    FEBRUARY 11, 1974
    The meeting that Lacovera had recommended actually took place on February 11, 1974, even though it was Sirica who occasioned it. Sirica was a worried man. Jaworski’s prediction of cover-up indictments by the “end of January or the beginning of February” had proved inaccurate, and the end of his tenure as chief judge, on March 19, was but a few weeks away. So Sirica sought yet another ex parte meeting with Jaworski. Like their earlier meeting, this one was unmentioned in subsequent books by the parties involved. It was not even acknowledged in subsequent WSPF appellate briefs responding to allegations that such meetings may have occurred.
    Here is what Jaworski’s memo of the following day said about this meeting (see Appendix E ):
               On Monday, February 11, I met with the Judge at which time several matters were covered as we sat alone in the jury room.He again indicated that provided the indictments came down in time, he would take the Watergate Case, stating that he had been urged to do so by any number of judges from across the nation the most recent of them being those who were in attendance with him at a meeting in Atlanta. He expressed the opinion that these indictments should be returned as soon as possible. He also stated that henceforth all guilty pleas would be taken by him. We talked about the Vesco case and he merely expressed the thought that perhaps a sealed indictment would be of some help.
    Again, a secret meeting of the special prosecutor with the trial judge would have been bad enough, but we now also know that the topics of their discussions were way out of bounds. As Jaworski’s memo makes clear, they were alone in the jury room. His wording also indicates that this was not the first time that the judge had informed him of his desire to appoint himself to the cover-up trial. Jaworski knew—because Sirica had told him so—that Sirica wanted to run this trial too. It is quite clear that Sirica was urging that the indictments be hurried along so that he could do so, a point mentioned twice in Jaworski’s memo.
    It is a significant procedural advantage for the prosecution to know in advance which judge is to preside over the trial of the indictments they have under consideration and that he will hear all guilty pleas. They can garner their evidence, tailor their indictments, and consider any plea bargains aided by their knowledge of the peculiarities of that particular judge.
    Sirica’s discussion of the Vesco case with Jaworski is troubling in and of itself. John Mitchell was about to go on trial in New York City for improperly helping Robert Vesco to resolve an SEC investigation in exchange for a two-hundred-thousand-dollar political donation. When Sirica pressed Jaworski to hurry the cover-up indictments, the prosecutor would have explained (as he detailed in his book) that he didn’t want these indictments to be announced until after the Vesco jury had been sequestered, lest Mitchell argue that the attendant publicity had poisonedpotential jurors’ minds for the Vesco case. Sirica’s apparent response was to suggest that the cover-up indictments could be brought in time for him to appoint himself to the trial but kept under seal so as not to influence the New York jurors. It is difficult to imagine a more egregious example of a judge’s secretly working with the prosecution toward a common