Reply #34: Interesting.

[H2O Man]

I would use Watergate and Iran-Contra as models. In both cases, there were people deeply joined at the hip. Yet in both cases, people turned on each other.

In part this is always a result of a good investigator. Again, I think a quote from Woodward's book "The Secret Man" is of value here: "He gave me a lecture about breaking a conspiracy like Watergate. 'You build convincingly from the outer edges in, you get ten times the evidence you need against the Hunts and Liddys. They feel hopelessly finished -- they may not talk right away, but the grip is on them. Then you move up and do the same thing at the next level." (page 91) Felt, of course, knew the methods of investigation.

The second part is the attorneys. Each of the White House officials has their own attorney. Private attorneys, in fact, who are not representing the WHIG. Rather, they represent their individual clients. There comes a time when a good attorney says, "Listen, you've been caught. You have limited choices. One is to save yourself. The other is to try to protect other people. What do you want to do?"

The chances that the group is united at this point is, in my opinion, zero.