Elliot Richardson

Richardson refused President Nixon's instruction to dismiss Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in October 1973 and resigned as attorney general. The dispute concerned the independence promised to an investigation within the executive branch itself. His departure did not prevent Cox's eventual dismissal, but it made the cost of overriding that arrangement publicly unmistakable. The case is about a senior official declining to use his own authority to terminate an investigation, rather than claiming the power to remain in office against the president's wishes.