SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACRE & ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER STORY ABOUT JUDGE K

Before we begin our history lesson, make sure you scroll down and read about a comparison between the almighty and a member of the judiciary. And yes we recall the quip that goes "what's the difference between a federal judge and the lord? The lord doesn't think he's a judge."  And now, on with the show...

It went down in history as  "The Saturday night massacre" and it is a prime example of presidential power misused. Like a boomerang, what Nixon threw came around and hit him in the back of the head. 

The president believed he was above the law, so he ordered the Attorney General of the United States, Elliot Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox (you don't meet many people named Archibald these days). Richardson refused and resigned. Next up in the DOJ was William Ruckelshaus, who also refused. As you will read below, Nixon did not get to an ASA assigned to the Hialeah Branch Court to do his bidding, but almost. 

Nixon refused to turn over the tapes made in the Oval Office, lost in the US Supreme Court in US v. Nixon, (which is now a bane to federal criminal defense attorneys everywhere seeking a rule 17(c) subpoena) and eventually resigned, consigned to history to be opined upon by the likes of the  Honorable Judge Hirsch, who provides us, free of charge, a timely constitutional calendar today:
(Longtime and careful readers know that this isn't our first post on this subject. You can review the other one here). 

          “Nixon Forces Firing of Cox; Richardson, Ruckelshaus Quit”

– Washington Post headline, Sunday, Oct. 21, 1973

A former aid to White House insider H. R. Haldeman revealed to a congressional Watergate committee that President Nixon had recorded secret conversations in the Oval Office.  Archibald Cox, the bowtie-wearing Harvard professor who had been appointed the Watergate independent special prosecutor, obtained a court order directing the Nixon White House to produce the tapes.  Nixon, furious and running for his political life, ordered his Attorney General, Eliot Richardson simply to fire Cox.  To the president’s astonishment and outrage, Richardson refused.  In what must have been a scene evocative of a Leoncavallo opera, Nixon responded with something like a curse: “Let it be on your head,” he seethed at Richardson.

Nixon then ordered the next in command at DOJ, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox.  Ruckelshaus instead submitted his own resignation, writing to the president that, “I am, of course, sorry that my conscience will not permit me to carry out your instruction to discharge Archibald Cox.”  Finally, in Solicitor General Robert Bork Nixon found a man to do his bidding.  “I am, as instructed by the president, discharging you, effective at once, from your position as Special Prosecutor, Watergate Special Prosecution Force,” Bork wrote to Cox.  

Nixon had underestimated the national sense of outrage.  NBC news anchor John Chancellor told his viewers, “The country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history.”  David Broder of the Washington Post coined the phrase “the Saturday night massacre” to refer to what had happened, and the phrase stuck. Professor Cox released a statement which included the dire message, “Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately for the American people.”

As talk of impeachment swirled around him, Nixon backed down.  He appointed the highly-respected Leon Jaworski as special prosecutor, and announced that he would produce the tape recordings

Judge K 
Can't get enough of the Judge K story of the day? Then head over the Mr. Markus's blog where he has a Palm Beach Post story covering the career of the former Dade State and Federal prosecutor. 
Or just click the link here to the story which opines that the Judge may have a G-d complex. 

SATURDAY NIGHT

There were two Saturday events that arguably defined the 1970's: The Saturday Night Massacre and Saturday Night Fever. One involved the twisting, physical machinations and mis-directions of individuals popular in the public's imagination....and the other involved a movie about the Disco craze. 
Considering most of our robed readers were not alive on October 20, 1973, a history lesson is in order. 

In October 1973 President Nixon was on the ropes. In the spring of 1973 Attorney General Elliott Richardson appointed Archibald Cox as the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate burglary. 

Special Prosecutor Archie Cox 

Cox soon issued a subpoena to Nixon for the tapes of White House conversations. The battle lines were drawn. On Friday October 19, 1973  Nixon offered what is now known as the "Stennis Compromise": Senator John Stennis (who was notoriously hard of hearing) would listen to the tapes and summarize them for Cox. Cox rejected the offer that same day. 

On Saturday Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered deputy AG William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus refused and also resigned. Next up: Solicitor General Robert Bork who suddenly found himself to be acting Attorney General Of the United States. He woke up Saturday morning as the unknown Solicitor General. Perhaps had some coffee and a bagel and reviewed some briefs. Before midnight he was the AG of the US. In Bork's defense, both Richardson and Ruckelshaus had given their word to Congress that they would not fire Cox. Bork had not, and the order from the President was facially valid. Bork had not wanted to go down in history as the man who "did the President's bidding" but he felt he had no choice. 

The next day Nixon was caught in a lie (which was a big thing at the time for the President. No so much now). The White House had officially stated that Ruckelshaus had been fired. But the letter from Nixon to Bork stated that Ruckelshaus had resigned in protest. 

On  November 14, 1973, US District Judge Gerhard Gesell (who was born in Los Angeles to parents who were immigrants, which currently raises suspicions about his loyalty to the US)  ruled that the firing of Cox was illegal and ordered he be reinstated as special prosecutor. Nixon fought the subpoena to the supreme court, where he lost in an unanimous decision Tump v. US  (not yet)  US. v. Nixon 418 US 683 (1974). Nixon resigned in disgrace ten months after he Massacre. 

Saturday Night Fever on the other hand was a 1977 hit movie staring John Travolta detailing the life of Tony Manero,  a Brooklyn kid who spends his Saturday nights dancing at local discotheques. The movie was based on a 1976 New Yorker article by writer Nik Cohn entitled "The Tribal Rights Of The New Saturday Night."  

V

incent was the very best dancer in Bay Ridge—the ultimate Face. He owned fourteen floral shirts, five suits, eight pairs of shoes, three overcoats, and had appeared on American Bandstand. Sometimes music people came out from Manhattan to watch him, and one man who owned a club on the East Side had even offered him a contract.  A hundred dollars a week. Just to dance. 

Interestingly, much like Nixon and the current POTUS, Cohn acknowledged in a 1990 interview that his article was mostly a fabrication. Cohn was a Brit and he was unable to garner enough material for  his assignment to document the emerging New York Disco-Club scene. One night,  Cohn- recently arrived from London,  went to the club 2001 Odyssey in Bay Ridge,  Brooklyn, and witnessed a drunken street fight outside the club. One of the combatants fell to the curb and threw up on Cohn's leg. Cohn quickly retreated to Manhattan and thereafter fabricated most of the story, relying on characters he knew from a gang in Derry, Northern Ireland, where he had grown up.