President Richard Nixon kicked off the Saturday night massacre when he ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson had hired Cox to investigate the break-in at the Watergate hotel. When Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox, Richardson refused and instead resigned. The President then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fix Cox, but he too refused and resigned. Nixon turned to the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork. Bork fired Cox. However, the firing of Cox backfired on President Nixon as public outrage about his actions led to the hiring of a new special prosecutor.
Exhibit exists
True