From NY Times, 09-29-1999:
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/29/us/donald-g-sanders-dies-at-69-brought-nixon-taping-to-light.html
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- Sept. 29, 1999
Donald G. Sanders, a former Senate lawyer who uncovered the White House tapes that led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation, died on Sunday at a hospital in Columbia, Mo. He was 69.
Mr. Sanders, who lived in Columbia, died of cancer, said his wife, Dolores.
A former F.B.I. agent, Mr. Sanders was a Republican staff lawyer for the Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in when he brought to light ”the smoking gun” that eventually pointed to Nixon’s complicity in a cover-up of the break-in.
It was in a closed-door preliminary interrogation that Mr. Sanders’s curiosity was aroused by seemingly apprehensive answers from Alexander P. Butterfield, Nixon’s former appointments secretary.
Mr. Sanders dug deeper and asked if it were possible that some sort of recording system had been used in the White House.
Mr. Butterfield answered, ”I wish you hadn’t asked that question, but, yes, there is.”
Mr. Sanders then hurried to tell Fred D. Thompson, the lead minority counsel who is now a Republican senator from Tennessee.
”We both knew then it was important,” Mr. Sanders recalled in a 1997 interview.
Then, in nationally televised hearings, Mr. Thompson asked Mr. Butterfield about the recording system.
”It was actually Don who discovered the existence of the White House taping system, but he was too unassuming to ever mention it,” Mr. Thompson said on Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.
Mr. Sanders had returned to his home state in the 1980’s after more than two decades of Federal Government service as a lawyer for Congressional committees, an F.B.I. agent and an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Gerald R. Ford.
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Donald Gilbert Sanders was born on April 26, 1930, in St. Louis. He graduated from the law school of the University of Missouri and then spent two years in the Marines. From 1956 to 1959, he was city attorney for Columbia.
From 1959 to 1969, Mr. Sanders worked for the F.B.I.
In 1969, he started working as a lawyer for Congressional committees.
After returning to Missouri, Mr. Sanders served as a commissioner in Boone County in 1989 and 1990, but he did not seek re-election. He had a private law practice in Columbia until his death.
In 1997, Mr. Sanders, while battling cancer, tried to start a national campaign to draft Senator Thompson for the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination, but Mr. Thompson declined to enter the race.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Sanders is survived by two sons, Michael, of Dallas, and Matthew, of Monrovia, Calif.; a daughter, Deborah Sanders, of Arlington, Va., and his mother, Ann Sanders of Columbia.
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 29, 1999, Section A, Page 25 of the National edition with the headline: Donald G. Sanders Dies at 69; Brought Nixon Taping to Light. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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Well, my friend Deb knew, of course!
What an important role! And, one that is antithetical to most of today’s GOP, with a few exceptions. It’s an interesting (discouraging) contrast with the total lack of integrity among most GOP politicos and “parallel universe” supporters whose corrupt willingness to face truth about Trump’s criminal conspiracy to overthrow our Constitution and our duly elected Government still threatens our American democracy!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
06-21-22