This was a natural subject for a new investigative reporter on the Post's local staff. At that time the District of Columbia Police Department was favored by Nixon and particularly by his Attorney General, John Mitchell. Top FBI officials suspected, rightly, that Nixon and Mitchell would have liked to name the D.C. police chief, Jerry V. Wilson, to be the next FBI director. In short, the FBI viewed the D.C. police force as an ally of the Nixon Administration and thus an implied rebuke to the Bureau and its independent tradition. The symbolic value of the investigation into police corruption was openly discussed and debated at the time.
Some investigators say political pressure has been brought to find widespread corruption.
They conjecture it is perhaps to discredit the President. On the other hand, some other investigators say pressure has been exerted to not uncover too much and protect the Administration. Only days after this story appeared, the White House moved to lend political support to the police department. The FBI had been in charge of the investigation of the D.C. police, and Woodward would have dealt with FBI officials in the course of his reporting. And indeed, on that day and over the following two weeks, working as part of a team of Post reporters, Woodward was able to come up with details about the life and travels of Arthur Bremer, the man who stalked and finally shot Wallace, virtually as soon as FBI investigators uncovered them.