Former Watergate Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste '64 to Lecture at 'Berg
Former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste ’64 will deliver a lecture, “The Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11” on Thursday, April 8 at 8 p.m. in the Recital Hall, Center for the Arts. This event is free and open to the public.Wednesday, March 31, 2010 00:23 PM
In addition to the lecture, Ben-Veniste will guest teach a class, Theories of International Relations, on April 9.
Ben-Veniste graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City, earned an A.B. from Muhlenberg College, an LL.B. from Columbia Law School in New York City and an LL.M. from Northwestern University School of Law in Evanston, Illinois.
He was an assistant U.S. attorney (1968–1973) in the Southern District of New York, and chief of the Special Prosecution section, (1971–1973). He became a leading Watergate scandal prosecutor, first as chief of the Watergate Task Force of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office, (1973–1975), then Special Outside Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations (1976–1977), and chief counsel (minority) of the Senate Whitewater Committee (1995–1996).
He was the Democrat's chief counsel (1995–1996) on the Senate Whitewater Committee investigating President Bill Clinton's Whitewater scandal and others. He argued effectively, as a skilled trial attorney, that Clinton and Hillary Clinton did no wrong during the deal, in their other Arkansas business affairs, nor in obstructing law enforcement personnel after Vince Foster's suicide.
Ben-Veniste is a presidential appointee (2000) to the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, a group mandated to review and declassify documents relating to war crimes in the World War II era. He was a member (2002) of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, or “9/11 Commission.”
