Former Attorney General John Mitchell delivered this crude threat to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein about their investigation linking the Watergate break-in directly to the White House.. The message was clear: stop publishing or we'll destroy her and her paper. The Nixon Administration tried going after the Post's TV licenses and even launched an IRS investigation. The Washington Post share price dropped sharply and Katharine was even threatened with prison. She never blinked. She kept publishing, upholding her and her father's principle that newspapers exist to tell the truth.