After James Risen of The New York Times exposed warrantless eavesdropping, Vice President Dick Cheney commented, on December 21, 2005: ” ‘Watergate and a lot of things around Watergate and Vietnam, both during the ’70s served, I think, to erode the authority…the legitimate authority of the presidency’–practices exercised by Nixon that were outlawed after Watergate.’ ”
– Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11, Pages 238-239