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Serious charges have been made in testimony before Senate committees and a grand jury in Washington, in statements by FBI agents and convicted Watergate conspirators, and in press reports that have not been effectively rebutted. Officials of the President's reelection committee got suitcases full of cash from secret donors, including one who is under investigation for violating federal laws. They failed to keep the complete financial records required by law. The President's personal lawyer admitted paying a political saboteur, and his official lawyer recommended the hiring of one of the Watergate conspirators. The FBI was used to gather campaign information, and cooperated chummily with White House officials whom it should have been investigating.
Last week the Watergate affair claimed its highest-level casualty so far. Nixon reluctantly complied with the request by L. Patrick Gray III that his name be withdrawn from Senate consideration as permanent director of the FBI (see following story page 16).
Ervin's dramatic drive to clarify all the murky mysteries surrounding Watergate is part of an even broader clash between two branches of Government. The White House and the Congress are locked in a struggle that goes to the very foundations of the Constitution. On a wide variety of fronts, Ervin is leading the challenge to the Executive Branch's expansion of power.
Beyond being the chief Watergate prober, Ervin is a key member of a special Senate subcommittee set up to investigate the President's excessive use of Executive privilege. The subcommittee, chaired by Maine's Senator Edmund Muskie, will begin hearings this week. Ervin is also chairman of the Senate's Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, which is trying to block Administration-supported attempts to force newsmen to reveal their confidential sources in judicial proceedings. He has proposed a "press shield" law that would protect newsmen who are subpoenaed at federal and state levels from having to reveal their sources or unpublished information, unless they had witnessed a crime or had personally received a confession. Ervin had modified his bill several times on the basis of testimony before his committee —an example of how open he is to reasoned arguments by witnesses.
In addition, Ervin is chairman of two Senate bodies—the Government Operations Committee and the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Separation of Powers—that are trying to prevent the President from impounding funds. Nixon is claiming the right to withhold funds that have been voted by Congress and thus in effect to determine Government priorities regardless of the express wish of congressional lawmakers. Last week Ervin introduced an amendment to an unrelated bill that would oblige the President to seek congressional approval before impounding any funds. The amendment passed, 70 to 24.
If the amendment is enacted, Nixon will veto it. The difficulty of overriding such a veto was convincingly demonstrated last week when Senators failed by four votes to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to overcome Nixon's veto of a $2.6 billion program to rehabilitate handicapped persons: the first such spending clash of the new congressional term.