Donald Segretti

In 2000, Segretti served as co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign in Orange County, California.

In 1995, Segretti ran for a local judgeship in Orange County, California. He quickly withdrew from the race when his campaign sparked lingering anger over memories of his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

Segretti was a lawyer who served as a prosecutor for the U.S. Army and later as a civilian. However, his license was suspended on February 27, 1976. Segretti is currently shown as an active member in good standing of the State Bar of California.

In the 1976 film about Watergate, All the President's Men, Segretti was portrayed by Robert Walden. The character downplayed the dirty tricks he had undertaken as "Nickel-and-dime stuff. Stuff. Stuff with a little wit attached to it."

In 1974, Segretti pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal campaign literature (including the forgeries described above) and was sentenced to six months in prison. Segretti served four months.

Segretti appeared as a witness before the Senate Watergate Committee in October 1973.

Segretti was hired by his friend Dwight L. Chapin to run a campaign of dirty tricks – which Segretti referred to as "ratfucking" – against the Democrats, with his work being paid for by Herb Kalmbach, Nixon's lawyer, from presidential campaign re-election funds gathered before an April 7, 1972 law required that contributors be identified. Segretti's actions were part of the larger Watergate scandal and were important indicators for the few members of the press investigating the Watergate burglary in the earliest stages that what became known as the Watergate scandal involved far more than just a burglary.

He holds a B.S. in finance from the University of Southern California (1963) and a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law (1966). While at USC he was a member of the Trojan Knights and initiated into Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. At University of Southern California, he was a member of Trojans for Representative Government with future Watergate scandal participants Dwight L. Chapin, Tim Elbourne, Gordon C. Strachan, Herbert Porter, and Ron Ziegler.

Donald Henry Segretti (born September 17, 1941, in San Marino, California) is an attorney best known for working as a political operative with then-U.S. President Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President during the early 1970s. Segretti served four and a half months in prison after investigations related to the Watergate scandal revealed his leading role in extensive political sabotage efforts ("ratfucking") against the Democrats.