Committee to Re-elect the President
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The Committee to Re-elect the President, often abbreviated to CRP or CREEP, was a Nixon White House fund-raising organization.
[edit] Members
- John N. Mitchell - Campaign Director
- Jeb Stuart Magruder - Campaign Manager
- G. Gordon Liddy - Campaign member
- E. Howard Hunt - Campaign member
- Maurice Stans - Campaign Finance Chairman
- Kenneth H. Dahlberg - Campaign Midwest Finance Chairman
- Hugh W. Sloan, Jr. - Campaign Treasurer
- James W. McCord - Campaign Security Coordinator
- Donald Segretti - Campaign Political Operative
- Fred LaRue - Campaign Political Operative
[edit] More Information About Members
John N. Mitchell had previously served as United States Attorney General.
G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt planned the details of the Watergate first break-in (May 28, 1972) that led to the ensuing Watergate scandal.
James W. McCord was one of the five burglars. E. Howard Hunt's name was found in McCord's address book when McCord was arrested.
CRP funds, a sum of $500,000 U.S. dollars, were used to pay legal expenses for the five Watergate burglars after their indictment in September 1972. The link of the break-in back to the White House and the President's campaign fund-raising committee turned the burglary into an explosive political scandal. The burglars, as well as Liddy, Hunt, and Mitchell, went to prison over the break-in and their efforts to cover it up, along with other members of the Nixon Administration. One illegal action that CRP committed was the break in of Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist office in an attempt to find material to discredit Ellsberg. The leak of the Pentagon Papers, military records about the Vietnam War, helped sway American sentiment towards opposing the war.
Donald Segretti performed the dirty tricks (political sabotage) program. Segretti detailed it to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who described it in their Pulitzer Prize winning book, All The President's Men.