![]() Many of those actions were carried out by a unit right inside the White House, applying orders conveyed by presidential acolytes. It amounted to a full-blown constitutional crisis-intelligence gathering on political opponents, smear campaigns, an “enemies list,” illegal campaign funds, illegal use of the Internal Revenue Service to persecute political enemies, illegal wiretaps, and much more, with executive privilege used to shield the transgressions. Watergate is the term used to connote a whole array of so-called “dirty tricks” and political misdeeds during Richard Nixon’s presidency. ![]() This Electronic Briefing Book will detail where the new version of the Huston Plan came from, the original story of the plan, the backstory of how it was actually manipulated by operating agencies acting against American dissidents, and the way the security agencies used “sources and methods” arguments rooted in conventional espionage practice in an attempt to shield their actions against Americans. Nixon, who resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974, about ten days after the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives passed the count of its indictment which was based upon the Huston Plan. The Huston Plan is a perfect illustration of that, sharpened by the fact that the actions recounted here figured in the impeachment of Richard M. Lamberth, who presided over William Barr and Donald Trump’s attempt to silence John Bolton.Īs the Bolton case shows, these episodes have an intricate inner logic which is frequently very different from surface appeals to simple secrecy. Remarkably enough, that court order is from the same federal district judge, Chief Judge (now Senior Judge) Royce C. Just being released as the result of a 2017 court order is a fresh version of the Huston Plan document. Today we have the example of a notorious secret from the days of the Nixon administration, a scheme for spying on American citizens known as the “Huston Plan” after its White House shepherd. This is possible, in turn, because regulations on the proper handling of secrets are observed on the security side, but much more rarely when it comes to releasing records whose claim to secrecy is expired. President Donald Trump’s claims to secrecy fell by the wayside, but these issues recur too often because legitimate secrecy is repeatedly manipulated for political advantage – to shield wrongdoing or embarrassment or to hide error. The Trump administration’s attempt to squelch the memoir of former national security adviser John Bolton once more puts a spotlight on government secrecy. * * * * * Spying on Americans: New Release of the Infamous Huston Plan Today’s posting also features more than two dozen additional documents from the FBI, CIA and other sources - as well as audio recordings from the Nixon Tapes - most of them obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and posted for the first time. This is the first time the document has been released on its own and with this amount of text declassified. Parts of the document have appeared previously, for instance in the records of the Senate Watergate Committee and the Church Committee. Named for Tom Charles Huston, the youthful White House liaison to the interagency intelligence committee that oversaw the operations, the Huston Plan played a part in President Richard Nixon’s impeachment, providing evidence for his misuse of the FBI and other parts of the executive branch. The proposed activities ranged from monitoring domestic dissident groups - notably the Black Panthers - to office break-ins. intelligence community envisioned a smorgasbord of covert operations that made even FBI Director J. The notorious “Huston Plan” prepared by representatives of the White House and the U.S. ![]() Washington, DC, June 25, 2020 - Portions of a long-secret government blueprint for expansive surveillance of domestic protest movements during the Nixon presidency have just been released, more than 50 years after it was drafted.
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