A federal judge sided with a historian, today, ordering that secret grand jury testimony by Richard Nixon be released publicly. Nixon testified before a grand jury, after he resigned and after he was pardoned by President Gerald Ford.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted a request by historian Stanley Kutler, who has written several books about Nixon and Watergate, and others to unseal the testimony given on June 23 and 24 in 1975.
Nixon was questioned about the political scandal during the 1970s that resulted from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington.
The AP reports the 297-page transcript will be available after the government is is given the time to appeal. Nixon, the AP adds, was interviewed in his California home.
Kutler told the AP he wants the records because he believes it would enhance the historical record of Watergate.
"Nixon knew when you testified before a grand jury you exposed yourself to perjury, so I'm betting he told the truth," said Kutler, the author of Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes.
That testimony was the first time a former president was compelled to testify in front a grand jury.
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