The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President

MSNBC legal analyst Wine-Banks debuts with a brisk and empowering memoir focused on her experiences as a trial lawyer in the Watergate special prosecutor’s office. She describes facing off against members of Richard Nixon’s inner circle in depositions; being menaced by FBI agents after her boss was fired in the “Saturday Night Massacre,” cross-examining presidential secretary Rose Mary Woods about her “accidental” erasure of more than 18 minutes from a key White House recording, enduring sexist comments from the trial judge, and forming an unlikely post-Watergate friendship with former White House counsel John Dean. Wine-Banks also opens up about more personal matters, including her high school nose job, her struggles to leave her “miserable” marriage, and her affair with a justice department colleague. After Nixon’s resignation and the convictions of four conspirators on obstruction of justice charges, Wine-Banks went on to become the first woman general counsel of the U.S. Army and the first female deputy attorney general of Illinois. She packs the books with insider details and helpful legal analysis, and offers a revealing glimpse of a professional woman’s life in the post–Feminine Mystique era. This unique and intimate perspective on Watergate shines a well-deserved spotlight on the people who seek to hold the powerful to account. (Feb.)