United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that resulted in a unanimous decision against President Richard Nixon, ordering him to deliver tape recordings and other subpoenaed materials to a federal district court. Issued on July 24, 1974, the decision was important to the late stages of the Watergate scandal, when there was an ongoing impeachment process against Richard Nixon. United States v. Nixon is considered a crucial precedent limiting the power of any U.S. president to claim executive privilege. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote the opinion for a unanimous court, joined by Justices William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun and Lewis F. Powell. Burger, Blackmun, and Powell were appointed to the Court by Nixon during his first term. Associate Justice William Rehnquist recused himself as he had previously served in the Nixon administration as an Assistant Attorney General. Summary The case arose out of the Watergate scandal, which began during the 1972 presidential campaign between President Nixon and his Democratic challenger, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota. On June 17, 1972, about five months before the election, five men broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C.; these men were later found to have ties with the Nixon administration. In May 1973, Attorney General Elliot Richardson appointed Archibald Cox to the position of special prosecutor, charged with investigating the break-in. Later that year, on October 20, Nixon ordered that Cox be fired, precipitating the immediate departures of both Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus in what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre". Cox's firing kindled a firestorm of protest, forcing Nixon to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. In April 1974, Jaworski obtained a subpoena ordering Nixon to release certain tapes and papers related to specific meetings between the President and those indicted by the grand jury. Those tapes and the conversations they revealed were believed to contain damaging evidence involving the indicted men and perhaps the President himself. Hoping that Jaworski and the public would be satisfied, Nixon turned over edited transcripts of 43 conversations, including portions of 20 conversations demanded by the subpoena. James D. St. Clair, Nixon's attorney, then requested Judge John Sirica of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to quash the subpoena. While arguing