Donald Segretti

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Segretti during the Watergate hearings.

Donald H. Segretti (born September 17, 1941 in San Marino, California) was a political operative for the Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon) during the 1970s. Segretti ran a campaign of dirty tricks (which he dubbed 'ratfucking') against the Democrats. His actions were part of the larger Watergate Scandal.

In 1974, Segretti pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal (in fact, forged) campaign literature and was sentenced to prison. One notable example of his wrong-doing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old.

In the 1976 film about Watergate, All The President's Men, Segretti was played by the actor, Robert Walden.

Segretti was a lawyer who served as a prosecutor for the military and later as a civilian. However, his license was suspended for two years following his conviction. In 1995, he ran for a local judgeship in Orange County, California. However, he quickly withdrew from the race when his campaign awakened lingering anger over his involvement in the Watergate Scandal.

In 2000, Segretti served as co-chair of John McCain's campaign in Orange County, California.[1]

He holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Southern California (1963) and a J.D. from UC Berkeley Law School (1966).