President Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal

Perhaps, of all state leaders, most often the accusations of lying were made against former President Nixon. He was the first president to resign; but it did not happen because he lied. And not because in June 1972 the White House staff were detained while attempting to break into the premises of the headquarters of the Democratic Party in Watergate. The thing was that he covered this crime and for this he had to lie. When the tape recordings of conversations in the White House became public, the following Nixon's words became known to everyone: “I don't give a damn about everything that happens, the main thing is that no one will know about it. Refer to the Fifth Amendment, for anything - just to save the situation. ”
The case was successfully silenced for almost a whole year, until one of those accused of a burglary attempt, James McCord, told the judge that the burglary was only part of a larger conspiracy. Then it became known that Nixon taped all the conversations in the Oval Office. Despite all the attempts by Nixon to hide the most compromising information available on these tapes, the White House’s Law Commission had enough evidence to apply the article on impeachment. And as soon as the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to hand over the film to the jury, the president resigned on August 9, 1974.
From my point of view, the problem is not that Nixon lied, because I believe that the head of state sometimes has to lie; the matter is in the content of this lie, its motivation and in whom it was addressed. In this situation, there was no attempt to mislead the government of another country - Nixon lied to all the people of America. Such a lie cannot be justified by the need to achieve certain foreign policy goals. Nixon concealed that he knew about the crime, that is, about trying to steal documents from the office of the Democratic Party in Watergate. His main goal was to keep his post by all means. He was afraid to cause voter disapproval in the event that they find out that Nixon's assistants, with his knowledge, violated the law in order to ensure his victory in the upcoming elections. The first article of impeachment accused Nixon of obstructing justice; the second is that his administration abuses power and is unable to ensure the faithful implementation of the laws, and the third is that he deliberately ignored the requirements of the Legal Commission to submit tape recordings and other documents to the court. But Nixon should not be condemned only because he was a liar, although his jubilant opponents very often brought this very charge against him. Heads of state could not do their work if they were not allowed to lie under any circumstances.