John Dean: When I was a whistleblower, the Justice Department protected me

[fleur-de-lisa]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/02/opinions/john-dean-whistleblower-justice-department-opinion/index.html

Let me tell you how it used to be for a White House whistleblower. In 1973, a few weeks before my testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee, the chairman, Sam Ervin of North Carolina, became concerned for my safety. There had been a steady stream of death threats against me that he felt could not be ignored. The committee had thought the Capitol Police could protect me during the hearings, but Ervin did not think that was enough.

He talked with the newly appointed Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, about the situation. There was a relatively new program, authorized in 1970, to protect federal witnesses. It was run by the US Marshals Service, an agency of the Justice Department, which reported to President Richard Nixon. Ervin and the attorney general, Elliot Richardson, were confident that even though I would be a witness against the President, the marshals would protect both my safety and privacy.

My wife and I agreed. I was under the protection of two marshals, sometimes 24/7, for the next 18 months. Those marshals were consummate professionals, and I am sure their successors are, too. The Marshals Service is an organization that takes great pride in its quiet but effective work.

Now we have a different president and a different whistleblower. President Trump says he wants to find out who it is -- the person who filed a seven-page complaint in August accusing the President of "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." But thanks to the Whistleblower Protection Act, Trump has no legal right to know this person's name.

more at link

[dchill]

1. Those were the days my friend...

We thought they'd never end.

[spanone]

2. That was pre-trump.

trump makes richard nixon look like a petty thief