CREEP was involved in accepting donations from large corporations, while making them promises to give political favors, using campaign funds to fund the Watergate invasion, twisting and using the departments of the executive to help those that promoted Nixon and hurt those that denied him, branding members of the media who were in opposition of Nixon as "enemies", hurting them every opportunity, borrowed CIA equipment for burglaries, and worst of all, used campaign funds to hire men to plant false evidence on Nixon's Democratic contenders for the Oval office (Ervin, 5,6). Mitchell, one of the directors of CREEP, initiated the cover-up on June 18th, by issuing a statement saying that McCord and the others were acting on their own when they invaded the Watergate (Ervin, 8). Within weeks, the Washington Post and other news sources found out that Hunt was on Nixon's payroll and that he and Gordon Liddy, a CREEP attorney, orchestrated Watergate (Ervin, 9). The news revelations sparked the FBI and grand jury to begin conducting investigations.
C. The legal authority in investigating Watergate and Iran-Contra.
In addition to the FBI and Grand Jury investigations of the Watergate break in itself, congress and a special prosecutor also were part of the Watergate investigation. These two entities ultimately took over. In early February the Senate passed Senate Resolution 60, which initiated the Senate Watergate Committee Hearings (Greenblat, 2151). The passage of this bill allowed for the Senate to subpoena, order, and motion virtually anybody to their hearing to testify on Watergate (Ervin, 20,21). Along with the Senate hearings, Watergate initiated the first ever Special Prosecutor. The Attorney General made the order on November 2, 1973, granting the Special Prosecutor full authority over criminal matters in Watergate. It states,.