146 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 79 PART 1 JANUARY 2021
H.R. Haldeman shortly resigned as White House chief of staff over his
role in Watergate, and Al Haig took over his role. It was Haig who implemented
the plan to get to George Beall through his older brother, Senator
Glenn Beall. He did so at the direct instruction of President Nixon, who suggested
that he use Mel Laird, a White House adviser, while noting, “I can’t
have it put out that I was trying to fix the case.”12
Haig did get certain individuals to lobby Senator Glenn Beall. In fact, the
person he got to do it was none other than future president, George H.W.
Bush! This stunning set of facts—an attempt by President Nixon and Vice
President Agnew to obstruct the criminal investigation into Vice President
Agnew by using George H.W. Bush as an intermediary—is actually confirmed
in a memo to file U.S. Attorney George Beall made on July 25, 1973.
In it, Beall confirms the attempt but also notes that the scheme went
absolutely nowhere thanks to the integrity of both Bealls:
With respect to conversations with my brother Glenn, the discussions
were most superficial and very guarded. He occasionally mentioned to me
the names of persons who had been to see him or who had called him with
respect to the Baltimore County investigation. Names of persons that I
remember him telling me about included Vice President Agnew, Allen
Greene and George Bush. With respect to all of those persons, Glenn told
me that he had advised them in every instance that he could and would
have no connection with or involvement in any matter related to activities
of the United States Attorney’s office. He said that he, as was his nature,
would listen politely to the inquirer, but would advise them that he would
do nothing more than relate to me, if the inquirer wanted, an expression
of concern. The only specific information that he passed along to me that
I can recall related to a complaint that he had heard from Bush to the
effect that attorneys in this office were said to be harassing persons who
had been questioned by us in the Baltimore County investigation.13
That the scheme went nowhere was confirmed when Attorney General
Richardson visited Haig to tell him that Vice President Agnew was soon to
be facing a 40-count federal criminal indictment on bribery and extortion
charges. Yet Agnew remained undeterred. He was not going down without
a fight. In fact, he doubled down and took the position that a sitting vice
president could not be criminally charged and insisted that impeachment
was the only mechanism by which he might be removed from office.
In fact, Agnew wrote a letter to the speaker of the House and demanded
that he be investigated by the House. Agnew and his legal team felt that an
impeachment process meant that an indictment would not be forthcoming,
and politically he may have a chance of surviving impeachment. But there
was one person who was not so keen on Congress getting a taste for running
impeachment hearings, and that was President Richard Nixon. In the fall of
1973, White House counsel John Dean had started giving evidence against