Hi, I'm Susan Matthews, one of the hosts of Slowburn. Thanks for joining us for episode two of this season. I hope you're enjoying the story so far. I want to let you know that after this episode, the rest of the season will be available exclusively to Slate Plus members. Becoming a member gets you full access to every season of Slow Burn. Plus, add free listening and exclusive bonus episodes from your other favorite

Slate podcasts.

And it helps support the work we do here at Slate.

Stick around to the end of the episode for more about why Slate Plus is so essential,

how you can join, and what you will get when you do.

The following podcast contains explicit language.

Wright Patman was a congressman from Texas. He was a populist who hated Wall Street

banks and the politicians who coddled them. He was sort of the Elizabeth Warren of his

time. Strictly speaking, the Watergate affair wasn't really any of Patman's business.

But he had a couple of questions anyway.

Why were the burglars who broke into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate

carrying thousands of dollars in $100 bills?

And why were the serial numbers on those $100 bills in sequential order?

And why had one of those burglars received a deposit of $89,000 in checks from a Mexican bank?

That bank account belongs to one of the men arrested June 17th at 2.30 in the morning in the national headquarters of the Democratic Party.

For Patman, all that money was a huge red flag.

It suggested that this was not a third-rate burglary, as the White House was insisting,

but rather a well-funded, high-level operation.

The case is still being investigated, and the mystery remains.

Patman was a Democrat who had been in Congress since 1929.

At the time of the break-in, in June of 1972, he was just shy of 80 years old and in the

twilight of his career.

...