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Donald Segretti

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Donald Henry Segretti (born September 17, 1941 in San Marino, California) was a political operative for the Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon) during the 1970s. Segretti was hired by friend Dwight L. Chapin to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which he dubbed "ratfucking") against the Democrats. His actions were part of the larger Watergate scandal. Karl Rove was Segretti's protege during the 1972 Nixon campaign.

In 1974, Segretti pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal (in fact, forged) campaign literature and was sentenced to six months in prison, actually serving four months, and was disbarred in the state of California. One notable example of his wrong-doing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old.

In the 1976 film about Watergate, All the President's Men, Segretti was played by Robert Walden.

Segretti was a lawyer who served as a prosecutor for the military and later as a civilian. However, his license was suspended for two years following his conviction. In 1995, he ran for a local judgeship in Orange County, California. However, he quickly withdrew from the race when his campaign awakened lingering anger over his involvement in the Watergate scandal. In 2000, Segretti served as co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign in Orange County, California.

He holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Southern California (1963) and a J.D. from UC Berkeley Law School (1966). While at USC he became associated with Dwight L. Chapin, Tim Elbourne, Ron Ziegler, Herbert Porter and Gordon C. Strachan, they all joined the "Trojans for Representative Government" group.

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