Mitchell, John

▪ attorney general of United States

in full  John Newton Mitchell 

born Sept. 15, 1913, Detroit, Mich., U.S.

died Nov. 9, 1988, Washington, D.C.

      U.S. attorney general during the Nixon administration who served 19 months in prison (1977–79) for his participation in the Watergate Scandal.

      Mitchell played semiprofessional hockey while working his way through Fordham University (New York City) and Fordham law school. During World War II he served in the Navy as a torpedo boat commander.

      It was for his expertise in state and municipal bonds that Mitchell achieved fame while an attorney with a prominent New York law firm. He became acquainted with Richard M. Nixon (Nixon, Richard M.) early in 1967, when their respective law firms merged. Mitchell quickly became a close political adviser to Nixon, and in 1968 he managed Nixon's successful campaign for the presidency.

      Appointed attorney general, Mitchell took office in January 1969 and remained there until March 1972, when he resigned to head Nixon's reelection committee. During his tenure at the Justice Department, Mitchell became controversial for his backing of two of President Nixon's nominees to the Supreme Court who were rejected as unqualified by the Senate, his approval of wiretaps without court authorization (declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court), his prosecutions of antiwar protesters, and his suit to block publication of the so-called Pentagon Papers (rejected by the Supreme Court).

      Mitchell resigned as head of the Committee for the Reelection of the President in July 1972, shortly after the arrest of several men discovered burglarizing the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate (Watergate Scandal) apartment complex in Washington, D.C. In 1974 he was indicted on charges that he had conspired to plan the break-in and that he had obstructed justice and perjured himself during the subsequent cover-up of the affair. He was convicted in 1975 and sentenced to 2 ¹/₂ to 8 years in prison; he entered prison in 1977 and was released on parole in 1979.

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