u/APoliticalDrone2012

In California, the CRP aimed to get George Wallace's American Independent Party (AIP) knocked off the ballot in the 1972 presidential election.[4] They feared that he would split the vote in a 3-way race, and without him believed Wallace voters would go for Nixon.[4][5] As part of this plan, in 1971 the CRP offered to pay Joseph Tommasi, a Californian neo-Nazi, US$5,000, equivalent to $39,749 in 2025, to help.[6] Tommasi was told to convince AIP voters to register instead as Republican; due to California's election rules, if there were too few registered voters for a party, they would be knocked off the ballot.[6][7] The goal was to get the AIP's numbers either below 11,000 or less than 1/15th of 1% of all registered voters in the state.[4]

The AIP's voter registration actually rose during the period the plan was enacted. Tommasi's involvement was also a failure, as he only came up with 4 men for the plan instead of his promised 20.[6][4][5] Tommasi was paid less than he was promised (US$1,200 vs US$5,000), and claimed the CRP had cheated the Nazis.[8][6][5] In response, Tommasi leaked the story to the press.[6][9] This initially resulted in only local news reports, but after the reveal of the Watergate scandal and CRP's implication in it, the story made national news, including in The New York Times.[6][4][10] Hugh W. Sloan Jr. testified about the plan to the Watergate Commission.[4]

Robert Walters, the high-profile right-wing activist who created the plan, initially denied any tie to the CRP and said he had come up with the idea on his own.[4][5] He also said he did not remember the Nazis.[10] Another participant in the plan disputed Walters's telling of events; reporters ultimately found checks from Walters to Tommasi, after which Walters conceded that the neo-Nazis "might have been involved".[4][5] The plan was described by the Watergate Committee as a "complete failure numerically, according to all participants",[8] though the Los Angeles Free Press noted it had perhaps worked out for Tommasi.[4]