The
Watergate scandal was a major
political scandal that occurred in the
United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the
Democratic National Committee headquarters at the
Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the
US Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a
constitutional crisis.
[1] The term
Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included "
dirty tricks" such as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the FBI, CIA, and the
Internal Revenue Service. The scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Nixon administration, articles of impeachment,
[2] and the resignation of
Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, on August 9, 1974—the only resignation of a U.S. president to date. The scandal also resulted in the
indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration of 43 people, dozens of whom were Nixon's top administration officials