Highly secretive documents finally released Wednesday, including a draft of a would-be criminal indictment against former President Richard Nixon, could provide guidance for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into President Trump, according to the group of legal analysts that sued to unearth the materials. The ‘Road Map’ was simply that – a series of guideposts if the House Judiciary Committee wished to follow them,” the late Jaworski wrote in his 1976 memoir, “The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate.”

Sirica’s modern-day successor, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of the District, on Oct. 11 ordered the disclosure of his report – with limited redactions – in response to petitions by California author and former Nixon deputy Watergate defense counsel Geoffrey Shepard and by Brookings Institution senior fellow Benjamin Wittes; Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under president George W. Bush; and Stephen Bates, a Las Vegas professor who co-wrote the Starr report with now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and other members of Starr’s team. The group noted at Lawfare that while the Starr report during President Bill Clinton's tenure was made public, the analogous document during the Nixon administration had remained confidential for decades. Few people have even heard of it.”

The salacious Starr report, released in September 1998, became a political football and wrecking ball upon its release, with critics charging that it was an overtly political document. The documents, known as the Watergate Road Map, as released Wednesday contained redactions and never-before-seen remnants of the investigation into Nixon but largely contained information previously made public, according to the Archives. This is unfortunate, but it is essential.”

The Watergate documents, the analysts argued, also could offer insight into the ongoing legal debate as to whether a president constitutionally could be charged with obstruction of justice at all, as well as whether it would be appropriate within the special counsel statutes for Mueller to issue a public or confidential report on his findings — should he issue a report at all. “It is possible that it is even relevant to discussions taking place within the Mueller investigation itself.”

The records in the Watergate Road Map initially were provided to Congress under seal 45 years ago, on the order of federal appellate Judge John Sirica, after special prosecutor Leon Jaworski argued he theoretically had enough evidence for criminal charges again Nixon, even though the Constitution seemingly did not permit a sitting president to face a criminal indictment. The draft indictment against Nixon contained charges of bribery, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and obstruction of a criminal probe -- and seven Nixon aides who were charged later were similarly hit with obstruction counts. “The grand jury was able to discern that Nixon himself was a criminal, and the only reason that they did not indict him is because there was a question of whether or not a sitting president could be indicted,” University of Virginia Miller Center historian Ken Hughes said in an interview.
After three prominent legal analysts (Geoff Shepard, Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Stephen Bates) filed separate lawsuits seeking its unsealing and Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on Oct. 11 ordered the disclosure, the National Archives releases a set of documents from the Watergate investigation as a possible "road map" for the Mueller probe, including a would-be indictment against former president Richard Nixon.