Word: mccord
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...Sirica, on March 23, tentatively imposed heavy sentences on most of the seven convicted Watergate conspirators but offered to review the jail terms later, implying that the sentences might be reduced if the convicted men told everything that they knew about the break-in and bugging. On April 5, McCord, who alone had not yet been sentenced, began making sensational charges before the grand jury. He claimed that Mitchell, Dean and Magruder knew about the Watergate bugging plans in advance and had discussed them at a meeting in Mitchell's office in February 1972, when Mitchell was still Attorney General...
...McCord also contended that after the men were arrested inside the Watergate on June 17, they received regular payoffs to keep quiet. These amounted to at least $1,000 per man each month and were, he said, delivered in cash by Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, wife of one of the arrested men. Hunt, a former White House consultant, later pleaded guilty to burglary and wiretapping. His wife was killed in a Chicago airplane crash on Dec. 8; she was carrying $10,000 in cash at the time. McCord also contended that the payoff money was coming from the Nixon reelection...
Trouble was, nearly all of the McCord testimony was based on hearsay. McCord had cited as his sources G. Gordon Liddy, another former White House aide convicted in the wiretapping, and Hunt. But Liddy was refusing to speak to the grand jury at all. Rather than talk, he accepted an additional sentence for contempt of court. Hunt did testify further before the jury, but apparently was not supporting McCord's charges about the Watergate planning and the payoffs?or did not have personal knowledge of them...
Thus the grand jury seemed frustrated in trying to confirm McCord's reports. But on April 6, for reasons that are still not clear, Counsel Dean gave information to the Watergate prosecutors in the Justice Department that corroborated for the first time much of what McCord was claiming. His motive could have been connected with the fact that only two weeks earlier he had been publicly accused...
...next break came on April 11, when Jeb Magruder's chief assistant, Robert Reisner, appeared before the grand jury. With knowledge of his boss's activities, he apparently backed most of McCord's testimony, including the claim that Magruder had attended a February meeting with Mitchell about the bugging plans. But a greater revelation came three days later, on April 14, when Magruder went to Justice Department officials and told of the February meeting with Mitchell and Dean. This was the first confirmation by any participant in the meeting that the Watergate bugging had been discussed at this high level...