https://www.nytimes.com/1974/10/22/archives/jury-hears-tape-of-nixon-urgingaides-to-stonewall-balking-of.html
"Over the heated objections of defense counsel, the jury in the Watergate case heard today the tape recording in which Richard M. Nixon said he wanted his aides to stonewall it ... plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it'll save itsave the plan.
Mr. Nixon made the remark on March 22, 1973, to John N. Mitchell, his former Attorney General and re‐election campaign director and now one of the five defendants on trial.
....
The two tapes were played to the jury in conjunction with testimony by Mr. Dean, now a Federal prison inmate as a result of his guilty plea last year to conspiracy in the cover‐up.
Mr. Dean, on the witness! stand for the fourth day, told the jury about various meetins at the White House on March 21 and March 22, 1973, the period when the cover ‐ up seemed about to come apart under an assortment of strainsthe upcoming Senate Watergate hearings, for instance, and the increasing threats that the original Watergate defendants, might tell the true story about Watergate unless they received further money and assurances.
Mr. Dean told the jury, among other things, that he and others at the White House had briefly considered asking Mr. Mitchell to 'step forward and take the blame for the events that culminated in the break‐in at the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate complex here on June 17, 1972. It was hoped, Mr. Dean said, that the events at the White House after June 17the cover upwould thus escape investigation."....(more)