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The Watergate Girl

My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

This program includes a prologue and epilogue read by the author.
Obstruction of justice, the specter of impeachment, sexism at work, shocking revelations: Jill Wine-Banks takes us inside her trial by fire as a Watergate prosecutor.

It was a time, much like today, when Americans feared for the future of their democracy, and women stood up for equal treatment. At the crossroads of the Watergate scandal and the women's movement was a young lawyer named Jill Wine Volner (as she was then known), barely thirty years old and the only woman on the team that prosecuted the highest-ranking White House officials. Called "the mini-skirted lawyer" by the press, she fought to receive the respect accorded her male counterparts—and prevailed.
In The Watergate Girl, Jill Wine-Banks opens a window on this troubled time in American history. It is impossible to read about the crimes of Richard Nixon and the people around him without drawing parallels to today's headlines. The book is also the story of a young woman who sought to make her professional mark while trapped in a failing marriage, buffeted by sexist preconceptions, and harboring secrets of her own. Her house was burgled, her phones were tapped, and even her office garbage was rifled through.
At once a cautionary tale and an inspiration for those who believe in the power of justice and the rule of law, The Watergate Girl is a revelation about our country, our politics, and who we are as a society.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Jill Wine-Banks's own voice passionately bookends her story about being the sole female Watergate prosecutor. Her timbre contrasts with the fuller voice of narrator Cassandra Campbell, who delivers the body of the audiobook, vividly capturing the White House scandal of nearly 50 years ago. Campbell's steady pace is appreciated as she sets the scene and describes the many players. A two-syllable "why" is drawn out during a courtroom scene, and Campbell's voice is especially high and girlish during a surprise. Campbell especially finds her groove once the author opens up about her belittling husband, when we hear a sigh of disappointment, a voice heavy with despair. In the epilogue Wine-Banks describes the happiness she eventually finds, as well as the worrying parallels between politics then and now. A.L.C. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 2, 2020
      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.

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Languages

  • English

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