W. Mark Felt is a Criminal

Well, Deep Throat has finally been unveiled - by himself. Today we find stories about the forthcoming Vanity Fair article naming him as Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate source. And, just now, Bob Woodward has confirmed the story. I just saw an interview on a local news station, and the participants were almost giddy. Nixon had tried to bring down the democracy, and he was stopped by this man, they said. But is this man, the Number Two (at the time) FBI employee W. Mark Felt, the hero that everyone on the left points him out to be?

It would have been better if Deep Throat had not been big at the FBI. The FBI was in the process of putting together a criminal complaint against the sitting President of the United States, Richard Nixon. As the main pressure being brought on the FBI was thru the Democrats, it looked as if the investigation was going to result in an inditement. Instead, Felt took documents from an ongoing criminal investigation and leaked them to the Washington Post. While this had immediate impact on President Nixon (he shortly thereafter resigned), it effectively ended the criminal inquiry. Things spun out of control. And many questions remain unanswered about it to this day. Where would the investigation led? Who else would have been incriminated? There seems to be no doubt that Nixon would have been forced to resign, if not have been convicted in a court of law - why mess up an ongoing criminal investigation?

Perhaps Felt was after the Number One position at the FBI - one that he didn't get. What Felt did was a criminal act - intentionally leaking classified documents that were party to an ongoing criminal case. And if he had been uncovered before the five year statute of limitations he could have been prosecuted. Imagine this - if it were found out that the FBI was involved in the taking down of the President of the United States thru illegal means (oddly enough the same means that the FBI was investigating the President for violating) would it be seen not as an act of conscience but a coup?

This was an extremely partisan fight all along. And I feel that we're going to find out much more about that in the days and weeks to come. It was the all-time high point for the media - they had proven that they could control the outcome of a war by intentionally misreporting the facts (Tet Offensive) and manipulating the populous, and that they could bring down a President before the legal process had taken it's course by being party to an act as illegal as the act that they were decrying. I wonder if the country was, or is, better off because of it.

Comments

[Tosser]

I entirely agree with you. Felt is a criminal. As a criminal, his family should not be able to capitalize on his crimes. There are laws against that, I think.

My opinion about Felt is at http://www.opinionsalad.com/2005/06/deep_throat_her.html

-Tosser

[Maggie]

Just heard G. Gordon Liddy interviewed by Chris Matthews on Hardball...Liddy doesn't believe it was Felt.