William Saxbe, a Republican maverick who became the fourth attorney general to serve under President Richard M. Nixon and presided during the Watergate investigation, died Tuesday. He was 94.
Saxbe, who served in the Ohio Legislature and as state attorney general, died at his home in Mechanicsburg, northwest of Columbus, said his son, Charles "Rocky" Saxbe.
A story from the AP says, Nixon's first two attorneys general were accused of Watergate-related crimes and the third, Elliot Richardson, resigned to protest Nixon's efforts to limit the investigation into the break-in and cover-up attempts.
Searching for a nominee who would be easily confirmed, the president chose Saxbe, a lame-duck one-term U.S. senator who had once labeled the Nixon administration "one of the most inept" in history.
Saxbe was a politician who "just did everything right," Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett said.
"He was probably the only one who could have got confirmed as attorney general of the United States after the `Saturday night massacre,'" Bennett said, referring to the 1973 firing on Nixon's orders of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignation of the Justice Department's top two officials.
Click here to read more of this story from the AP.
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