Nixon begins cleaning house as part of his second term including White House staff members, the Justice Department leadership (except Peterson), and others. Magruder, Strachan, and Krogh receive new posts in the government. Chapin and Colson move to the private sector.

As the house cleaning continues, Nixon tells Haldeman that Colson isn’t going to play a role going forward. Haldeman calls Colson to work out an arrangement for him to leave.

Woodward goes the county clerk’s office to try and uncover the names of the people on the Watergate grand jury. He’s able to view the information, but not take notes. He memorizes as many names as he can. At the Post the editors and reporters try to narrow down the list to people who were likely to help and not report them.

Woodward and Bernstein learn one of the grand jurors has reported them to Judge John Sirica.

Bernstein contacts a woman, referred to as “Z”, with significant knowledge of the White House and CRP. (Many believe based on notes discovered in Bradlee’s files in 2010 that Z was a grand juror, but Woodward and Bernstein vehemently deny this). She tells him there is more to their own stories than they realize. She runs through a list of potential lines of investigation, but won’t give details. She does say the work of the Plumbers is very important and goes back before the Pentagon Papers especially now that two of the men involved with that were indicted.

The Post acquires a copy of some documents related to the trial of the Watergate defendants including records of a phone assigned to Kathleen Chenow in the file. When Bernstein contacts her he learns she was The Plumbers secretary, and she’s willing to speak with him. She names The Plumbers as Hunt, Liddy, David Young and Egil Krogh and says they reported the Ehrlichman. The phone in question was used primarily for Bernard Barker to contact Hunt. After the break in, she was interviewed by the FBI and prosecutors. John Dean had met with her ahead of time to prepare her. She said no one every asked about Ehrlichman or anyone besides Colson, Hunt, Liddy, and Young.

United Airlines Flight 553 crashes in Chicago killing 43 passengers. One of the deceases is Howard Hunt’s wife, Dorothy. In her purse, investigators find $10,000 in cash.

In court, Sirica gives an impassioned condemnation of the media members who approached the grand jurors. Dan Schorr of CBS suspects it was Woodward and Bernstein, but the judge does not name names.

Patrick Gray burns documents from Hunt’s safe. He later claims the documents were unconnected to Watergate and testifies that Dean and Ehrlichman implied this was an order from the highest level.

Woodward visits the home of Alexander Butterfield, whom Sloan had said was in charge or “internal security” at the White House, but no one is home.

Dean calls Liddy to reassure him he’ll be well taken care of financially and with a pardon assuming he keeps quiet.

Jury selection for the Watergate burglary trial begins and takes only two days.

Richard Nixon celebrates his 60th birthday. A Gallup poll shows he has a 68% favorable rating in the country.

After lunch, Hunt, mentally broken from the ordeal of losing his wife on top of everything related to Watergate, changes his plea to guilty on all counts.

Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina agrees to preside over some kind of investigation into Watergate and the 1972 election.

Sirica learns that the Cubans also intend to change their pleas to guilty and calls a recess to the proceedings. This leaves on Liddy and McCord left for the trial.

Caulfield relays McCord’s position to Dean who says it was indeed a legitimate offer. This further solidifies Caulfield’s feeling that Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and possibly Nixon were behind it.

Caulfield again meets with McCord, but it’s clear he is not interested in going to jail.

The Post runs a story on Hunt’s schemes to get the others to plead guilty which they do later that day. Sirica is furious and questions them for an hour, but they all say they were not pressured and were not expecting clemency.

Woodward begins calling witnesses and finds one that is very familiar with Hunt and is willing to talk. The witness says Hunt always talked about Ehrlichman and how he was always slowing Hunt’s operations down. When Hunt was in hiding he wanted John Dean to get him a lawyer which surprised Woodward. During the trial, this witness is never asked any questions that would get this information on the record.

Felt/Deep Throat tells Woodward that Colson and Mitchell were behind the Watergate operation, but they have insulated themselves. This is generally believed by everyone in the FBI and White House, but there is no proof. He doesn’t understand why Liddy and McCord think help is coming since it would surely reveal others involved. The White House has already worked on plans that will include executive privilege to stop any subpoenas from causing problems for them.

Sirica proclaims his dissatisfaction with the proceedings and believes many facts have not been brought forth.

After less than two hours of deliberation, the jury finds Liddy and McCord guilty. Sentencing is scheduled for March 23.