Drunk History (2013) s06e13 Episode Script

Whistleblowers

1 [music.]
Okay, so someone broke in to the Watergate Hotel, and Martha Mitchell was like, something fishy's goin' on, baby.
She's gonna spill the goddamn beans.
[snorts.]
[laughing.]
Okay, okay.
[laughs.]
Eight hippies break in to the fucking FBI, and they're like, we were right! They're corrupt.
[laughing.]
I don't even know why I'm laughing.
It's like the human nervous system.
[patriotic music.]
[whimsical music.]
Gang, are we rolling? [laughs.]
- So you take the gin? - Yes.
- Take that.
- I love male bartenders.
I love, like [ice rattling.]
[clapping.]
[speaking indistinctly.]
Okay.
Here you go, baby.
[glasses clink.]
- Here we go.
- I'll just [chuckles.]
Hello.
I'm John Early, and today [laughs.]
You don't have to whisper.
Hello.
I'm John Early, and, uh, today we're gonna learn about Martha Mitchell.
[laughs.]
Martha the Mouth.
[laughs.]
It's the late '60s.
It's the early '70s.
Martha Mitchell is the hottest gossip around D.
C.
, okay? She was married to John Mitchell, head of the CRP, the Committee to Re-elect the President.
"Creep.
" She could hear everything because her husband is directly working for the president, Tricky Dick.
She had the hottest goss in D.
C.
So Martha is, like, calling the local D.
C.
news reporters and being like, y'all, we got a story, y'all.
So-and-so's doin' this.
This person's doin' this.
Martha's favorite reporter was Helen Thomas of the United Press International, y'all.
She's like, you're not gonna believe it, y'all.
So-and-so over here did that over there.
So if that doesn't paint the picture, I don't know what will.
Moving on.
[both laugh.]
So Smash cut to June 17, 1972, Martha and John go to a huge fund-raiser in Beverly Hills for the Republican Party.
Martha is like, oh, hey, there's John Wayne.
There's Ronald Reagan.
There's Nancy Reagan.
Suddenly, brring! John gets a call.
He's like, hello! And they're like, someone has broken in to the Watergate Hotel.
And he was like, fuck! And that's where the story ends.
[laughs.]
- Wow.
- Yeah.
Well, now we know what happened.
- Yeah, the end.
- They broke in, and that was it.
Thank you so much.
I'm gonna go.
Okay, so the next morning, John Mitchell issues a statement.
He's like, this has nothing to do with the CRP.
This is just, like, a fun side burglary.
[burps.]
I'm so sorry.
The press was like, uh, what about this guy John McCord? 'Cause he was one of the burglars.
So John Mitchell was like, what's that? What was the question? And they said, what I'm saying is, John McCord was in the CRP.
[dramatic music.]
And this, again, is fact.
He goes, fuck! Not only is John McCord, of course, completely a member of the CRP.
He was also Martha's head security guard.
And then it starts to dawn on John Mitchell.
He's like, if I if I if Martha finds out that John McCord was part of the Watergate break-in, she's gonna spill the goddamn beans.
So here's what he does.
He takes her to the hotel.
He's like, Martha, you stay in LA, honey.
- Bill Clinton.
- [laughs.]
You're right.
That was Bill.
Martha, you stay in LA.
[laughter.]
So so he's like, I'm gonna go to D.
C.
just for fun.
You stay out here.
You enjoy the sun.
He goes back to D.
C.
to do damage control.
But first he has, like he then has alerted his security team, specifically Steve King.
He's like, make sure that you, like, keep her in the hotel and make sure that she sees no newspapers.
Smash cut to Martha Mitchell goes to the front desk of her hotel, and she's like, can I have a copy of the "LA Times"? And the person's like, yeah.
[laughs.]
And then she, like, opens the "LA Times.
" Of course, every paper is running the Watergate story.
She sees John McCord's name, and she's like[gasps.]
And then she calls Helen Thomas, and she's like, something fishy's goin' on, baby.
Before she knows it, John Fucking Steve King, whatever, not John.
My name's John, and I'm complicit in a way.
You know, we can yeah, you know.
Yeah! It's my fault! Okay, so Steve King rips the phone out of her hands.
Helen Thomas heard Martha say, "Now, you get away from me!" Then the line goes dead.
The phone's hung up, and this is her first moment of, like, uh-oh, you are my captor.
[sneezes.]
- God bless you.
- Hold on.
[sneezing.]
Something is wrong.
Okay, so she's like, I'm gonna sneak out, and I'm gonna go into the next room, and I'm gonna get the phone.
Like, I need to call Helen Thomas again.
- So I'm gonna sneeze again.
- Please.
[sneezes.]
[laughing.]
Oh, God! So she starts to shimmy, y'all, across the side of the building to go to her neighboring hotel room, truly, like, badass.
But Steve King grabs her, physically, like, restrains her.
He calls a motherfucking doctor.
And the doctor says, "Hold her down, y'all.
" The doctor injects tranquilizers in her ass, Derek.
- No, thank you.
- They literally fully sedate her.
She's basically being held hostage so that she wouldn't speak to reporters.
So she is, like, kept in her hotel for a week.
It's been Sorry.
One week since you looked at me [gibbering.]
Sorry [laughs.]
There's no way Com Central's gonna pay for the Barenaked Ladies rights.
- That's true.
- They could, though.
It's been one week since you looked at me Is everyone ready? That's what I like to do on sets.
- I like that.
- Okay.
So she is she's in the hotel for, like, a week.
And she's finally released.
So she goes back to the Westchester Country Club.
She bursts in, and she's like, I'm being held prisoner by the GOP, y'all! And John Mitchell's like, [laughs.]
Sorry, y'all, she's a little [clicking tongue.]
So Martha at this point is like, okay, I'm being, like, silenced here.
So she calls Helen Thomas.
I know that you've been taught that "Deep Throat" broke the story of "Watergate.
" Okay? It was Martha Mitchell.
- Whoa.
- So Helen Thomas runs Martha's story, but, of course, as uszh and still today, it's relegated to the women's section, just like, "How to Make a Jello Mold," "Touch His Taint if You Want to Make Him Cum," and then, like, "The Republican Party, they are to blaaaame for breaking in to Watergate.
" And everyone's like [laughs.]
So no one cared, but Nixon catches wind of all this.
And he's like, this is not some fucking frivolous bitch.
He says to John Mitchell, you need to [laughs.]
Oh, God.
[laughs.]
[snorts.]
[laughing.]
Okay, okay.
- Huh? - Okay, okay.
He was like, keep an eye on her.
And thus begins this, like, era of, like for, like it's, like, two years of making her seem crazy.
Richard Nixon tells the press, she's an alcoholic.
So then what happens is, Nixon pays psychologists to say she's crazy, so Martha's like, I'm telling y'all the truth.
John McCord was my lead security guard, y'all.
We, in fact, developed a relationship much like the relationship portrayed in "Guarding Tess," starring Nicholas Cage and I want to say Shirley MacLaine.
[laughs.]
And, um and they're like, honey, you're crazy.
And this created a very famous thing now that psychologists use, which is called the Martha Mitchell effect, which is when you're misdiagnosed as being delusional when what you're actually saying is just the truth.
- Whoa! - Yeah.
So two years later, Woodward and Bernstein blow the lid off the story.
And, like, and then and thus John Mitchell is sentenced to prison.
And Nixon resigns on TV in 1974.
Martha Mitchell, she's laying back on her couch exactly like I'm doing right now, okay? She's literally she's, like, martini in hand, and she's like, I told y'all! Martha dies in 1976, but at her funeral and this is so beautiful at her funeral, they make a sculpture out of white chrysanthemums that says "Martha Was Right.
" - It's so punk rock.
- Wow.
She's the reason we know about Watergate.
- Cheers, John.
- Congrats.
What a what a fun what a fun time.
- The best.
- To Martha.
What's up, you guys? "Drunk History's" coming up next.
My name's John Early, and you won't believe what's up.
It's there's a lot in store.
Check me out, and if you know what's up, you'll definitely check the results.
[laughter.]
[lounge music.]
- So just do a quick intro - Hello! [laughter.]
Hello! It's me, Duncan Trussell.
You're watching "Drunk History," and tonight we're gonna talk about This isn't a commercial.
- This is your intro.
- Hello.
My name is Duncan Trussell.
Tonight we shall be discussing Hoover's burglars.
- Who? - Hoover's burglars.
Oh, that's cool.
So J.
Edgar Hoover was running the FBI as a tyrant for 50 years.
They're, like, surveilling ordinary citizens.
The FBI sucks! J.
Edgar Hoover, like, took over our country! So John and Bonnie Raines, they are Vietnam War protestors.
John Raines, he's a religions professor.
Bonnie Raines, she runs a day care center.
She's like, no more war.
War sucks.
War is the worst thing, Derek! - That's the point! - Agreed.
God damn it! So John and Bonnie Raines are having fucking dinner with Bill Davidon and they're saying, man, we're getting the feeling that the FBI has been infiltrating the anti-war movement.
He's like, oh, yeah, that would probably make sense.
Hoover has been running the FBI for 50 years, so probably it's more like a Gestapo than we would like to believe.
So Bill says, if anyone had any brains in this fucking country, they'd break in to the dumbass FBI and, like, get some files.
And they were like, that'd be smart.
And she's like, yeah, that'd be super smart.
John and Bonnie, having realized that they have to do something, begin to have activists over.
The kids are playing fucking Parcheesi, and they're, like, eating fucking spaghetti meatballs, slurping back big sweet fucking strings of pasta, saying, we are going to stop the FBI from fucking up the lives of the American people.
It's so important, man.
This stuff is so important.
These these aren't spectacular people.
They're normal.
They're like us.
- Yeah.
- Keith Forsyth, one of the group, learns to pick locks.
John and Bonnie are thinking, how do we find an FBI office? I don't know.
Look in the phone book.
So they look up the FBI in the phone book.
They're looking up FBI, FBI, FBI, FBI.
Uh, FBI, there it is.
They found, like, an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania.
[laughs.]
It's so funny to think the FBI listed their address in the phone book.
[laughs.]
So they're like, we should come up with a name for this.
And someone was like, okay, it's the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI.
[laughing.]
They're like, let's just call it whatever the fuck.
Who cares? Names suck.
Names are stupid.
Let's stop war.
[laughter.]
I don't even know why I'm laughing.
It's so stupid.
It's like the human nervous system.
It's so dumb.
It's like, I can't stop.
[laughter.]
[coughs.]
Okay, okay, okay.
Bonnie goes into the FBI office for a fake interview.
She dresses like a college student, puts on shitty prescription glasses.
Bonnie meets with the bureau chief of the FBI.
She's, like, trying to ask the FBI agent questions.
What would it be to be a woman in the FBI? What does FBI stand for? She's pretending to take notes, but actually she's sketching a map.
There's a file cabinet.
There's a door.
I can barely see.
- She scopes the place out.
- Mm-hmm.
She leaves.
She's like, thank you so much.
FBI is great.
Women are great.
Bye! [laughs.]
[bottle rattles.]
Oh, shit.
She goes back, and she's like, this room is completely breakable into-ble.
We can do this.
[laughter.]
I'm terrible.
He's like, so when do we do it? That's the question, what's the best time to attack? So they pick the night of the Fight of the Century Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier knowing that everyone will be watching the fight, including J.
Edgar Hoover.
On the night of March 8, 1971, they went to this FBI office, but then Keith takes one look at the lock and is like, what the fuck? This is a shit lock.
I've never seen anything like this.
This motherfucker is not a picker.
She's like, look, there's a better lock down this hall.
He goes to the secondary door.
Keith unlocks the lock.
But now there's a file cabinet in front of the door.
And he's like, what the fuck? Here's where it gets fucked up.
Underneath the FBI office is the apartment manager.
And he's, like, watching the fight.
He knows that if he pushes the file cabinet, the apartment manager will hear, so he listens, waiting for the moments of applause, and anytime there's applause, he slightly pushes the file cabinet.
[yells.]
They're punching each other! Oh, my God! They punch each other so hard! Oh, my God! Look how hard they're punching! Holy shit! - [laughs.]
- Okay, so [laughs.]
[laughs.]
So they flood in, eight of them, with suitcases.
They're wearing gloves.
They're smart.
They take it all files, bits of paper, everything.
They put it in their suitcase.
It's so amazing.
I have to pee.
Hold on one sec.
If I piss myself, can I sue Comedy Central? Well, what are you gonna sue them I don't know, Derek.
I gotta pee! I am so drunk.
I'm so sorry.
I always forget this part of it.
The the premise? [cackles.]
You fucking cunt! I always forget that.
I-I'm so drunk.
I always think, oh, no, this time, I'm gonna get really drunk.
Keep going.
You remember where you were? Basically, like, this is what this is so amazing.
Eight hippies walk out of this building in what would later be known as one of the most amazing acts of social activism in American history.
So they get back to the safe house, they open up their files, start reading them while they're eating their beers and drinking their chickens.
[laughs.]
And they're like, holy fucking shit.
We were right! They're corrupt.
They're, like, surveilling ordinary citizens, and this is unconstitutional, man.
They just got a fucking pile of documents showing the FBI has not only been infiltrating anti-war protests.
They've been, like, getting into the women's lib movement and and and, - like, create division within those ranks.
- Wow.
So they copy all this shit, and they send it.
And they're like, we did it.
We fucking did it.
They all vow to never, ever mention what has happened.
And they vanish into the night.
So Betty Medsger at "The Washington Post" opens up this anonymous package, and she's like, wait! What the fuck? Somebody broke in to the fucking FBI building and got this shit to us, and now we have to deal with this, man, 'cause either we fucking publish this shit, or we are pigs, barnyard animals, not journalists, just sold-out, bottom-level, low-level shitbags shills.
[laughter.]
And she's like, well, let's print it.
[cackles.]
And they fucking printed it.
Before the Pentagon Papers ever happened, before Edward Snowden, this shit happened.
Because of this, it leads to an oversight committee for the FBI.
Hoover is fucking furious! He's punching his fist through walls.
He's smearing lipstick on his face so it smears all over his lips.
He's biting fucking crawfish.
He's rubbing lavender ointment on his nipples.
He's dancing on top of Ouija boards.
He's setting fire to constitutions and punching aliens in the fucking face and kicking UFOs into the fucking Cyclopean eyeballs of Illuminati reptilian shills.
[laughing.]
What the fuck is that? [laughs.]
So the FBI is all over Philadelphia interviewing this person, that person, this person, that person, everyone.
John and Bonnie resume their lives.
But all the while, they're looking behind their shoulders, wondering, will this be the day I go to jail for doing the right thing? And five years passed.
The statute of limitations passed.
None of the members of the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI are ever caught.
- Wow.
- An ordinary American couple took down Hoover the tyrant.
From a moment, there was, like, a realization by all Americans that the government doesn't give a fuck about you, but we all forgot that now, and that's why we all have our phones and our Amazon Echoes, 'cause we don't really give a shit.
[laughs.]
[patriotic music.]
[patriotic music.]

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