"It would be terrible," Felt replied. "This would completely undermine the reputation that you might have as a loyal, logical employee of the FBI. It just wouldn't fit at all."
But a lot of people thought Deep Throat was a hero for getting the truth out about Richard Nixon's crimes in the White House.
"That's not my view at all," he said. "It would be contrary to my responsibility as a loyal employee of the FBI to leak information."
And so it was. Law enforcement officials aren't supposed to prosecute Americans via leaks to the press; if you doubt how destructive this can be, ask Wen Ho Lee. It's also against the law. Even if you were to recast Felt as a whistle-blower, at the time the FBI was exempt from the protections the law extended to whistle-blowers.
Noah goes on to detail Felt's other abuses of power, which resulted in a felony conviction while enabling Weather Underground bomber William Ayers to evade prosecution. He describes Woodward's poor treatment of Felt and the ex-FBI official's family's profiteering. Noah overlooks Felt's most likely motive for giving Woodward government secrets to get Nixon: He'd been passed over for J. Edgar Hoover's job.
All in all, it's a sordid story. It's obvious why Woodward had hoped to keep the secret until Felt's death, if not beyond. "Deep Throat was not a good man," reads the subhead on Noah's article. But it really doesn't matter, does it? Because when you're going after Richard Nixon, all's fair.
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