Eileen McNamara: Mark Felt was similar to those he opposed

[question everything]

startribune.com

Eileen McNamara: Mark Felt was similar to those he opposed

Boston Globe
Published June 3, 2005

Those looking for a hero will not find him in W. Mark Felt.

The former FBI official who is Deep Throat has a legacy that includes his felonious abuse of the Fourth Amendment as much as it does his anonymous championship of the First.

The man who says he exposed the Nixon administration's coverup of the break-in at the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party is the same man who authorized illegal break-ins targeting antiwar activists. Felt's commitment to the Bill of Rights in 1973 was as selective as his family's motives in 2005 are self-serving.

(snip)

Do those qualms just apply to Felt's revelations to the Washington Post about corruption in the Nixon White House, or also to Felt's authorization of illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches of the homes of the relatives and friends of members of a radical antiwar group, the Weather Underground? Does he have the same reservations about his own abuse of power as he had about that of G. Gordon Liddy?

(snip)

Felt and fellow FBI man Edward S. Miller were convicted in 1980 of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens by authorizing illegal break-ins and wiretaps of people connected to suspected domestic bombers. In an ironic twist worthy of Hollywood (and the administration of President George W. Bush), Felt justified his actions as a protection of national security. The jury disagreed, sending Felt and Miller the same message that was communicated so dramatically by Deep Throat's leaks to the Washington Post: No man is above the law.

(snip)

At Felt's trial in 1980, it was revealed that the illegal wiretaps and searches did not yield any information useful in the capture or prosecution of members of the Weather Underground. The Constitution was abused to no end. When President Ronald Reagan pardoned Felt and Miller in 1981, he cited the pardons given to Vietnam draft evaders.

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5436893.html

[MrBenchley]

1. He wouldn't have been on the inside if he wasn't...

Nixon's inner circle wasn't anything like honest, ethical people....Nixon was a scummy thug who was comfortable only with other scummy thugs.

Incidentally, John Dead points out that about half of what Felt told the Washington Post was bullshit.