The special premieres at 8 p.m., on Sunday on the Discovery Channel. 40 years later, Watergate resonates

One of the men behind an upcoming Watergate documentary says the lessons of the scandal are still relevant today.

Andy Lack, an executive producer of the Discovery Channel’s upcoming “All the President’s Men Revisited,” told POLITICO that nearly 40 years later, the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon is relevant to today’s front pages.


Take, for example, the similarities between that scandal and the ongoing investigation into a recorded meeting with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and staffers. In the meeting, audio of which was leaked earlier this month by liberal magazine Mother Jones, staffers discuss opposition research against actress Ashley Judd. At the time, Judd had flirted with the idea of challenging McConnell, though she has since decided against it.

( PHOTOS: The Watergate story)

How the audio was leaked is still up for investigation. But McConnell referred to the incident as “Nixonian.”

“I suppose that kind of level of malfeasance in politics has always been there — it’s ugly, it’s unattractive and Sen. McConnell and others have pointed out — whenever you talk about bugging a political headquarters, it echoes the Watergate era and that will always be there,” Lack said.

He then quickly added with a laugh: “But it’s going to be tough to top Watergate.”

( Also on POLITICO: John Dean: Mitch McConnell taping no Watergate)

More than 40 years after the political scandal that rocked the country’s political system — Lack said he first signed on to the documentary after his friend Robert Redford, who played Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in the 1976 film “All the President’s Men,” and Discovery CEO David Zaslav called him and asked him to do it.

Lack was familiar with the players involved and friends with Woodward, having done a feature on the Watergate story about 20 years ago for CBS.

“They called and asked me if I would do it and I said, ‘Of course,’” Lack said. “I was thrilled to do it. It’s one of the great political thrillers of all time.”

The main shoot for the interview portion of the film took place at Woodward’s house about two months ago. Redford, Woodward, Carl Bernstein and their executive editor at the time, Ben Bradlee, as well as a few others, reunited while Lack interviewed them on camera.

“They hadn’t been together as a group for many, many years, but as soon as they saw each other, the chemistry was still there,” Lack said. “They were laughing and joking with each other and reliving the way it all happened. For me, just sitting there and listening to them retell their story — it was like participating in a master journalism course.”

Lack said he considers Woodward a close friend and that they discussed Woodward’s recent challenge of President Barack Obama about who started the sequester, the $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to federal spending over the next decade that took effect March 1.

“He told me it was familiar ground for him. You get into these conflicts with the White House, something he’s well-known for — words matter and words are said and sometimes it’s frustrating when you’re chasing the truth,” Lack said.

He added: “He was just being straight and that makes people uncomfortable. He’s as straight arrow as they come. He’s as experienced a reporter as you will ever find.”

The special premieres at 8 p.m., on Sunday on the Discovery Channel.