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The White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, the Room 16 Project, ODESSA or more officially, the White House Special Investigations Unit, was a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established within a week of the publication of the Pentagon Papers in June 1971, during the presidency of Richard Nixon.[1] Its task was to stop and/or respond to the leaking of classified information, such as the Pentagon Papers, to the news media. The work of the unit "tapered off" after the bungled "Ellsberg break-in" but some of its former operatives branched into illegal activities while still employed at the White House together with managers of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, including the Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal.[2] The group has been described as Nixon's "fixers".[3]
- ^ "The Plumbers". The New York Times. July 22, 1973. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
- ^ "II. The Plumbers". The Atlantic. Retrieved September 17, 2013.
In the early evening of June 17, 1971, Henry Kissinger held forth in the Oval Office, telling his President, and John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman, all about Daniel Ellsberg. Kissinger's comments were recorded, of course, on the hidden White House taping system, and four years later, a portion of that tape was listened to by the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, which was then investigating the internal White House police unit known as the Plumbers.
- ^ Garment, Suzanne (April 13, 2018). "Cohen Makes Nixon's Fixers Look Like Amateurs". Real Clear Politics. Retrieved December 14, 2018.