INA’S INSIGHTS: On point with Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks

Anybody who lived through Watergate remembers the young attorney: Jill Wine-Banks (then Wine Volner). She was the sole female prosecutor on the federal government’s Watergate trial team.

Her cross examination of President Richard Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, blew open the federal government’s case that led to Nixon’s 1974 resignation. It’s fair to say that this young lawyer, brilliant and relentlessly hard-working, contributed significantly to helping the nation avoid a devastating constitutional impasse almost 50 years ago.

In “The Watergate Girl,” Wine-Banks’ new book, she unravels the political scandal from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate offices, the development of the actual impeachment articles in preparation for a Senate trial that would never happen. However, the federal government still convicted Nixon’s top aides and co-conspirators.