President Nixon’s fourth Attorney General William Saxbe, a Republican maverick who was at the helm during the Watergate probe, died Tuesday at age 94, the Associated Press reported.
The AP reported that he died at his home in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, outside of Columbus.
Saxbe became attorney general at a tumultuous time in history. Nixon’s first two attorneys general were accused of Watergate-related crimes and the third, Elliot Richardson, resigned to protest Nixon’s meddling in the probe, AP reported.
Nixon turned to Saxbe, a lame-duck one-term U.S. senator, who according to the AP, once labeled the Nixon administration “one of the most inept” in history. He served as U.S. Attorney from Jan. 4, 1974 to Feb. 2, 1975.
Saxbe was a politician who “just did everything right,” Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett, according to AP.
“He was probably the only one who could have got confirmed as attorney general of the United States after the ‘Saturday night massacre,”‘ Bennett said.
