I just heard Mike Malloy talk about the theft of President Jimmy Carter's briefing papers in 1980 and Malloy's sardonic "We're Republicans. We wouldn't cheat!"
Well, they certainly did but it didn't come out until years later. I had forgotten all about it.
From Wikipedia:
Debategate was a scandal affecting the administration of Ronald Reagan; it involved the final days of the 1980 presidential election. Briefing papers that were to have been used by President Jimmy Carter in preparation for the October 28, 1980, debate with Reagan had somehow been acquired by Reagan’s team. This fact was not divulged to the public until late June 1983, after Laurence Barrett (Time magazine's senior White House correspondent) published "Gambling With History: Reagan in the White House," an in-depth account of the Reagan administration’s first two years.
James Baker swore under oath that he had received the briefing book from William Casey while Casey vehemently denied this. The matter was never resolved as both the FBI and a congressional subcommittee failed to determine how or through whom the briefing book came to the Reagan campaign.
The Justice Department, in closing its investigation, cited "the professed lack of memory or knowledge on the part of those in possession of the documents." But it said the contradictions between Reagan aides like Mr. Baker and Mr. Casey "could be explained by differences in recollection or interpretation."
Following a brief period of heavy press coverage immediately after the story broke, interest in Debategate quickly subsided, and Reagan escaped without permanent damage to his reputation.
(Columnist George Will later admitted he saw the papers and coached Reagan on how to respond. He confessed to it only after he had appeared on "Nightline" to praise Reagan’s "thoroughbred performance.")
A federal appeals court eventually oveturned a lower court ruling directing Attorney General William French Smith to appoint a special prosecutor, Time reported in 1984:
Smith declined to request a special prosecutor when an eight-month Justice Department investigation failed to turn up evidence that a crime had occurred. A lawsuit, brought under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, argued that Congress had not intended to give the Attorney General, a political appointee, the last word on such probes. But the Court of Appeals rejected this reasoning, ruling that Congress did not intend judges to second-guess the Attorney General in these matters. Under the Ethics Act, said the appeals court, Congress could use other avenues, such as the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, to bring pressure on the Attorney General if it wishes.
There's more here on Debategate, including a few debate highlights.