Jerry Zeifman, the now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation, has some harsh things to say about one of the attorneys he supervised, none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

Why?

“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

According to Zeifman, Hillary Rodham, and other staff attorneys, engaged in under-handed tactics (hard to believe, I know) aimed at preventing President Nixon from having counsel. Apparently, she was concerned that Nixon's counsel might cross examine E. Howard Hunt.

Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.

Posted in: