The Watergate Hearings, 50 Years Ago: Truth Was Not Up for Debate

In the grandly marbled space of the Russell Senate Office Building known as the Kennedy Caucus Room, where a bipartisan select committee held nationally televised hearings to investigate the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate a half-century ago, alumni of that inquiry gathered Friday evening to reminisce — and issue warnings.

Their remarks, somber and theatrical as the room itself, were pitched to a present-day investigative body: the House select committee probing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“Some things change, and some things remain the same,” said a host of the gathering, Rufus L. Edmisten, the deputy chief counsel for the Senate select committee that investigated Watergate. “What hasn’t changed between Watergate and Jan. 6 is how money has stolen our democracy.”