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John O’Hurley, the “Seinfeld” actor and narrator of the documentary “Watergate’s Secrets and Betrayals,” says that the new film about the scandal that sunk Richard Nixon’s presidency finally proves that the former president “didn’t get his day in court.”
Fox News Digital spoke to O’Hurley, as well as the documentary’s director, George Bugatti, about their new film which they believe should reset the narrative about the Watergate scandal and show it was weaponized to force Nixon from office in 1974.
“What the film will expose is the fact that he didn’t get his day in court. And there were a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes that are otherwise considered illegal and to the point where he did not get fair jurisprudence,” O’Hurley told Fox News.
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John O’Hurley, the “Seinfeld” actor and narrator of the new documentary, “Watergate’s Secrets and Betrayals,” spoke to Fox News Digital about the film’s new revelations about the famous scandal. (Jesse Grant / Contributor | Bettmann / Contributor)
Nixon was the first and still the only U.S. president to resign when he stepped down in 1974. He left the White House in the face of a near-certain impeachment and conviction amid the Watergate scandal, which involved his administration’s cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters during the 1972 election.
The subsequent sprawling political and media investigation, and the stunning resignation of Nixon, made Watergate the most famous scandal in American political history – to this day, the suffix “gate” is affixed to many political scandals.
The new film is based on the works of Geoff Shepard, a former deputy counsel on Nixon’s Watergate defense team, who spent 27,000 hours combing through the records of the Watergate special prosecutor and uncovered what he believes is proof that “judicial and prosecutorial interests” colluded to force Nixon out of office.
Shepard’s research finds, though Nixon is still tied to the Watergate break-in and cover up, the paper trail left behind by the special prosecutor reveals alleged prosecutorial misconduct involved in the conviction of Nixon’s people, which ultimately led to the former president’s political demise.
O’Hurley said this film presents how there were “backstage meetings there between the judge and the prosecutor where counsel was not advised of.”
Bugatti noted that there “were about ten, maybe a dozen” meetings between the two without Nixon’s defense counsel knowing.
“But it’s very hard to take a look again at a document that says, from a prosecutor –lead prosecutor – I met with the judge secretly. And no one else knew,” he said, paraphrasing what Shepard’s research demonstrated.
O’Hurley, who famously portrayed supporting character J. Peterman on “Seinfeld,” added that these findings prove that Nixon was “railroaded” during the Watergate trial and decided his only option was to resign.
“He chose to resign because there was no other recourse for him,” the actor said, adding, “And I think that history will now bear this out if this is layered to the fabric of what the story is, that he was actually railroaded.”
Bugatti argued this railroading of Nixon was the country’s first instance of “lawfare.”
“What happened then is the birth of lawfare. It’s the weaponization of the criminal justice system and how they use that weapon to drive a president from office. They used it to avoid Nixon’s landslide reelection, which essentially is the will of the people. And this document shows that we need to be aware, to be alert, that this is still happening today.”
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The trailer for “Watergate Secrets and Betrayals: Orchestrating Nixon’s Demise” is available now on WatergateSecrets.com. (WatergateSecrets)
O’Hurley vouched for Shepard’s findings and the strength of the documentary in presenting them, telling Fox he never really questioned the popular Watergate narrative until working on this film.
“I am just a John Q. American. I literally had no idea that any of these activities occurred or that they were at such a high level of atrocity that they should have changed a lot of the actions that took place during the Watergate hearings,” he said.
“I literally – I’m the person that this documentary is meant to reach.”
When asked if he hopes the new documentary will change Americans’ perceptions of Nixon, he stated, “Well, you certainly hope so,” adding that the narrative can be altered only if “we do our homework and do the necessary promotion for this film, because this film is an essential piece of the Watergate story.”
“It’s important that this be added into the total picture of what really occurred in Watergate,” O’Hurley added.
Answering the same question, Bugatti told Fox, “I hope they take a look at this presidency as a whole. You take a look at the accomplishments that he had, you know, creating OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), creating Title IX, ending the Vietnam War, which he didn’t start – you know, take a look at his presidency and his legacy and not have the only thing that you think of when you think of Richard Nixon, as a caricature.”
“Watergate’s Secrets and Betrayals” is available now on WatergateSecrets.com and will premiere on major streaming platforms in the coming weeks.
Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this report.
Gabriel Hays is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.
