system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What was Watergate all about?
gpt
A bunch of ex-CIA spys working for President Nixon's reelection campaign got arrested trying to bug the phones of the Democratic Headquarters (at the Watergate Hotel).

Nixon said he knew nothing about it. Everyone belived him.

Over the next two years, two reporters with the help of an informant in the FBI who had secret knowledge of the actual events, showed that this wasn't just ONE break in. That Nixon's campaign was using secret money to fund all sorts of dirty and illegal political tricks.

So a bunch of Nixon's staff got called into congress to testitfy who knew what about the illegal campaign stuff. That's when one guy accidentally let the world know that Nixon tapes every conversation he had in the oval office.

So after a long legal battle, the Supreme Court forced Nixon to release the tapes. And they show that not only did Nixon know about the break in, but personally directed the efforts to cover it up. So he got caught with irrefutable proof he lied about Watergate a lot.

Soon after the Democrats in congress began to try and impeach him but he quit before he could be fired.