Jeb Magruder testifies before Watergate investigators. [Source: Bettmann / Corbis]
Former CREEP deputy director Jeb Magruder testifies in private to investigators for the Watergate investigation. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward learns of Magruder’s testimony on April 18, from a CREEP official. The official tells Woodward that “Magruder is your next McCord (see March 28, 1973). He went to the prosecutors last Saturday [April 14] and really tucked it to [John] Dean and [John] Mitchell.” Woodward asks why Magruder, who has a reputation for extreme loyalty, would testify against anyone in either the White House or the campaign. “Bad sh_t, man,” the official responds. “The walls were coming in on him—walls, ceiling, floor, everything.” Magruder blamed Dean and Mitchell for “[t]he whole mess,” says the official, “the bugging plans and the payoff scheme… those meetings, or at least one meeting, in Mitchell’s office when everything was discussed with [G. Gordon] Liddy before the bugging.” Woodward confirms the official’s account with a White House official, who says that Magruder told everything he knew: “The works—all the plans for the bugging, the charts, the payoffs.… This is no hearsay like McCord. It will put Dean and Mitchell in jail.” Magruder’s lawyer confirms that his client will testify before the grand jury when called. And a Justice Department official adds that “other people will testify that Mitchell and Dean were in on the arrangements for the payoffs.” [Bernstein and Woodward, 1974, pp. 292-293] The same day, Magruder admits to Bart Porter, the campaign’s director of scheduling, that he has been using Porter to help cover his own involvement in the Watergate conspiracy (see July 31, 1972). Porter, who has lied three times under oath for Magruder (see January 8-11, 1973), is horrified. He decides to stop lying for Magruder or anyone else, and tell the Senate Watergate Committee everything he knows about Watergate, regardless of the consequences. [Harper’s, 10/1974]