From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbarale. This is The Daily.

Today, the investigation that Robert Mueller has conducted as special counsel is based on a set of

rules designed to allow for the investigation of a sitting present. Those rules will now be tested.

It's Thursday, August 23rd.

From the time the founders sat down and created the documents and the constitution that this

country is based on, they knew there would be this incredibly difficult question that the

country would have to wrestle with, which was, how would the government investigate itself?

And in particular, how would the government investigate the president? It was not clear.

And over our history, at three distinct points, we've seen this tested. Nixon, Clinton, and now Trump.

Mike Schmidt, take us back to the first time that this was tested. What was it that prompted

the investigation into Richard Nixon? In 1972, burglars broke into the headquarters of the

Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel in Washington. Mr. Nixon says,

emphatically, that the White House is in no way involved in the burglary and bugging of the

Democratic headquarters. And he'll have no further comment on that matter. This leads to questions

about the involvement of the president. And it needs to be investigated.

There's still another Watergate investigation in the offing, the one to be conducted by a special

prosecutor. The Justice Department ultimately appoints a special prosecutor.

He has archibald cops. An investigator who is supposed to be protected from outside politics

to look into the burglary.

Good evening. The country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional

crisis in its history. What happens is that along the way in that investigation, Nixon fires

archibald cops in the Saturday Night Massacre. All of this adds up to a totally unprecedented

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