The Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) was formed in 1971 to raise funds for Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign. CREEP’s mission was to raise money and obtain intelligence on Democratic party activities. The inner workings of CREEP were exposed during the Watergate scandal, leading to accusations of crimes and prison sentences for some members. Despite this, Nixon was re-elected, but his popularity plummeted after the scandal and he resigned before impeachment proceedings. Former CREEP members resumed political careers or became authors and speakers, including Karl Rove.
Many sitting presidents seeking a second term in office form re-election committees, composed mostly of trusted aides and influential members of political parties. In 1971, a committee to re-elect the president was formed to help raise funds for Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign. Officially, this committee was known as the CRP, but it would eventually earn itself the more sinister-sounding acronym CREEP.
The president’s re-election committee was headed by a former Attorney General named John Mitchell, whose wife Martha would play a prominent role in the events leading up to the Watergate scandal. Mitchell was assisted by many of Nixon’s closest advisers, including John Dean and Jeb Magruder. CREEP’s primary mission was to raise as much money as possible for Nixon’s upcoming campaign and use it to pay the expenses of political agents hired to obtain intelligence on Democratic party activities.
Before campaign reform laws went into effect, organizations like the President’s Reelection Committee could essentially raise all the money they wanted and spend it however they wanted without financial disclosure. When several political operatives tried to break into the offices of Daniel Ellsberg, an outspoken critic of the Nixon administration, it was CREEP that took charge, for example.
Other prominent members of CREEP included G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, Charles “Chuck” Colson and a very young political intern named Karl Rove. Many of these men were thought to be top secret “stockmen” doing the illicit bidding of Nixon and other top administrators. The money to carry out these operations would be laundered through CREEP, then paid to the operators in untraceable cash. On the surface, CREEP would appear to be exactly what it claimed; a legal committee to re-elect the president.
The inner workings of CREEP were exposed when five of its agents were arrested after breaking into Democratic Party offices in an office complex known as Watergate. These thieves, or “plumbers,” paid many of their legal fees with recycled CREEEP funds originally earmarked for the Nixon campaign. This money trail would later become a major part of the Watergate investigation.
Once the nationwide Watergate scandal erupted, various CREEP members were accused of crimes ranging from obstruction of justice to conspiracy. Many were sentenced to prison for their participation in or tacit knowledge of the black bag operations, but others were fully exonerated or received minimal sentences in exchange for their cooperation with federal prosecutors.
Ironically, the president’s re-election committee actually got Richard Nixon re-elected to a second term. Indeed, the nationwide vote was considered a landslide. Because the details of the Watergate raid and other illegal operations had not become public in 1972, Nixon was still considered a popular president at the time of the election. In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, however, Nixon’s popularity dropped to an all-time low and he resigned from office before he could begin impeachment proceedings.
Several former CREEP members resumed active political careers after the fall of the Nixon administration, while others became motivational speakers and authors. Perhaps the most recognized former member of Nixon’s CREEP is controversial strategist and political campaign adviser Karl Rove, who continues to employ many of the same techniques and strategies first developed during Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign.
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