Bob Woodward Quotes

From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law.

As a member of Congress, I believe Congress must provide oversight of actions by the Executive Branch as our system of checks and balances requires.

Impeachment is not a Constitutional crisis. Impeachment is the cure for a Constitutional crisis.

A President could be impeached only for an error of the heart, and not of the head.

[The impeachment power] is the heaviest piece of artillery in the congressional arsenal, but because it is so heavy it is unfit for ordinary use.

That could have been a very successful Presidency had President Nixon really believed in our system.

Congress has a lot of powers which people, especially those in the executive branch, don't like to talk about.

Impeachment of the Chief Executive is essential to avoid political assassination when the Executive has rendered himself obnoxious

We can't give excessive, unfettered power to a president to act alone, to bind an entire country to a set of principles, a set of rules that the president, him or herself, makes.

I think there are periods in this country when behavior is abhorrent: McCarthy, Watergate, Bill Clinton. It's just a question of how the checks and balances in the American system work and how leaders stand up to it or don't stand up to it.

The Senate should refuse to confirm nominees who do not take Congressional power seriously.

I think there's always a role for Congress under every instance in every administration to conduct oversight of the executive branch.

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

I'm old enough to remember Richard Nixon. They called it the imperial presidency when he was refusing to spend money that Congress had appropriated.

You have a good judicial system in the U.S., as you have learned from the Nixon-Watergate period.

The real difference between the United States and other nations lies not in the words of the preamble to the Constitution, but in the fact that the substantive clauses of that Constitution are enforced by individuals independent of and not beholden to the elected branches.

It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution.

You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm innocent. You've got to believe I'm innocent. If you don't, take my job.

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.

Watergate provides a model case study of the interaction and powers of each of the branches of government. It also is a morality play with a sad and dramatic ending.

It would seem that the Watergate story from beginning to end could be used as a primer on the American political system.

Nixon's attempts to order subversion of various departments was bound to come out in some form.

The old Court you and I served so long will not be worthy of its traditions if Nixon can twist, turn and fashion If Nixon gets away with that, then Nixon makes the law as he goes along - not the Congress nor the courts.