National Archives publish Richard Nixon's draft indictment in the middle of a Mueller investigation

The document is a sketch, as shown in a handwriting in the upper right-hand corner of the first page, dated February 1, 1974, one month before Nixon's co-conspirators were charged.

The draft indictment indicated that a grand jury was considering charging Nixon with corruption, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and obstructing an investigation. criminal. A month later, seven Nixon associates were charged with conspiracy and six others with obstruction of justice, but none was charged with bribery.

In September of this year, Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes – Two editors from the well-known legal blog Lawfare – and Stephen Bates, who worked for freelance lawyer Ken Starr, announced that they were demanding documents that Watergate's special attorney, Leon Jaworski, had sent to Congress at the time. that Nixon was threatened.

Protect Democracy, the legal group that launched the lawsuit on behalf of the trio, said in a statement Wednesday that the Roadmap "was a critical historical precedent to ensure that the facts revealed by the investigation of the trio". Special advocate Mueller be made public and serve as the basis of responsibility is necessary. "

Mueller is responsible for investigating the potential coordination between Russia and the 2016 campaign of President Donald Trump, as well as other relevant information from the investigation. The former director of the FBI has rarely telegraphed his intentions, and the form that his final conclusions might take is not clear. In addition, if Trump himself is the subject of criminal findings, Mueller may think he is unable to impeach the incumbent president and should instead bring it before the Congress, which could then initiate impeachment proceedings.

Wednesday 's publication highlighted the problem the legal system was facing in the Nixon case, where investigators were finally able to submit their grand jury report through the intermediary. a judge in Congress.

As the Archives noted in a statement Wednesday morning, much of the information contained in the release was already in the public domain. But some of the documents themselves had not been in the public eye.

During the trial of Nixon's assistants, Ken Hughes, a historian at the University of Virginia's Life Sciences Center, is studying White House tapes and Watergate.

Hughes said that although the grand jury publicly acknowledged the desire to accuse Nixon, the charges themselves had never been made public.

"The grand jury was able to discern that Nixon himself was a criminal and the only reason they did not charge him was because there was a question of whether a President in office could or could not be charged, "said Hughes.