Donald Segretti

Donald H. Segretti (born September 17, 1941) was a political operative for the Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon) during the 1970s. Segretti ran a campaign of dirty tricks (which he dubbed 'ratfucking') against the Democrats. His actions were part of the larger Watergate Scandal.

He went to prison in 1974 after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of distributing illegal campaign literature. A major part of this was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie's letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old.

Segretti was a lawyer who served as a prosecutor for the military and later as a civilian. However, his license was suspended for two years following his conviction. In 1995, he briefly ran for a local judgeship in Orange County, California. He withdrew from the race shortly after his campaign awakened lingering anger over his involvement in the Watergate Scandal.