Watergate scandal

=== Money trail ===
{{More citations needed section|date=March 2016}}

On June 19, 1972, the press reported that one of the Watergate burglars was a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] security aide.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://watergate.info/chronology/brief-timeline-of-events |title=Brief Timeline of Events |publisher=Malcolm Farnsworth |access-date=May 24, 2012 |archive-date=May 19, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120519151808/http://watergate.info/chronology/brief-timeline-of-events |url-status=live }}</ref> Former attorney general John Mitchell, who was then the head of the CRP, denied any involvement with the Watergate break-in. He also disavowed any knowledge whatsoever of the five burglars.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/10/obituaries/john-n-mitchell-dies-at-75-major-figure-in-watergate.html |title=John N. Mitchell Dies at 75; Major Figure in Watergate |date=November 10, 1988 |work=The New York Times |access-date=January 25, 2017 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=February 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215204224/https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/10/obituaries/john-n-mitchell-dies-at-75-major-figure-in-watergate.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/mitchobit.htm |title=John N. Mitchell, Principal in Watergate, Dies at 75 |last=Meyer |first=Lawrence |date=November 10, 1988 |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=August 22, 2017 |archive-date=August 30, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080830004048/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/mitchobit.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> On August 1, a $25,000 (approximately ${{Inflation|US|25000|1972|r=-3|fmt=c}} in {{inflation-year|US}} dollars) [[cashier's check]] was found to have been deposited in the US and Mexican bank accounts of one of the Watergate burglars, Bernard Barker. Made out to the finance committee of the Committee to Reelect the President, the check was a 1972 campaign donation by [[Kenneth H. Dahlberg#Watergate|Kenneth H. Dahlberg]]. This money (and several other checks which had been lawfully donated to the CRP) had been directly used to finance the burglary and wiretapping expenses, including hardware and supplies.

Barker's multiple national and international businesses all had separate bank accounts, which he was found to have attempted to use to disguise the true origin of the money being paid to the burglars. The donor's checks demonstrated the burglars' direct link to the finance committee of the CRP.

Donations totaling $86,000 (${{Inflation|US|86000|1972|r=-3|fmt=c}} today) were made by individuals who believed they were making private donations by certified and cashier's checks for the president's re-election. Investigators' examination of the bank records of a Miami company run by Watergate burglar Barker revealed an account controlled by him personally had deposited a check and then transferred it through the [[Federal Reserve System#Check clearing system|Federal Reserve Check Clearing System]].

The investigation by the FBI, which cleared Barker's bank of fiduciary malfeasance, led to the direct implication of members of the CRP, to whom the checks had been delivered. Those individuals were the committee bookkeeper and its treasurer, [[Hugh Sloan]].

As a private organization, the committee followed the normal business practice in allowing only duly authorized individuals to accept and endorse checks on behalf of the committee. No financial institution could accept or process a check on behalf of the committee unless a duly authorized individual endorsed it. The checks deposited into Barker's bank account were endorsed by Committee treasurer Hugh Sloan, who was authorized by the finance committee. However, once Sloan had endorsed a check made payable to the committee, he had a legal and fiduciary responsibility to see that the check was deposited only into the accounts named on the check. Sloan failed to do that. When confronted with the potential charge of federal bank fraud, he revealed that committee deputy director [[Jeb Magruder]] and finance director [[Maurice Stans]] had directed him to give the money to [[G. Gordon Liddy]].

Liddy, in turn, gave the money to Barker and attempted to hide its origin. Barker tried to disguise the funds by depositing them into accounts in banks outside of the United States. Unbeknownst to Barker, Liddy, and Sloan, the complete record of all such transactions was held for roughly six months. Barker's use of foreign banks in April and May 1972 to deposit checks and withdraw the funds via cashier's checks and money orders, resulted in the banks keeping the entire transaction records until October and November 1972.

All five Watergate burglars were directly or indirectly tied to the 1972 CRP, thus causing Judge Sirica to suspect a conspiracy involving higher-echelon government officials.<ref>Quote: "There were still simply too many unanswered questions in the case. By that time, thinking about the break-in and reading about it, I'd have had to be some kind of moron to believe that no other people were involved. No political campaign committee would turn over so much money to a man like Gordon Liddy without someone higher up in the organization approving the transaction. How could I not see that? These questions about the case were on my mind during a pretrial session in my courtroom on December 4."
{{Cite book |last=Sirica, John J. |url=https://archive.org/details/tosetrecordstrai00siri/page/56 |title=To Set the Record Straight: The Break-in, the Tapes, the Conspirators, the Pardon |publisher=Norton |year=1979 |isbn=0-393-01234-4 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/tosetrecordstrai00siri/page/56 56]}}</ref>

On September 29, 1972, the press reported that John Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance intelligence-gathering against the Democrats. On October 10, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of ''[[The Washington Post]]'' reported that the FBI had determined that the Watergate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of the Nixon re-election committee. Despite these revelations, Nixon's campaign was never seriously jeopardized; on November 7, the [[1972 United States presidential election|President was re-elected]] in one of the biggest landslides in American political history.