The movie opens with the fact that on June 17, 1972, security guard Frank Wills in the Watergate complex finds a door bolt taped to prevent it from closing. He calls the police, who locate and arrest five burglars at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee inside the complex. The Washington Post assigned new reporter Bob Woodward to the local courthouse the next morning to cover the story, which is considered minor.
Woodward discovers that the five guys, four Cuban-Americans from Miami and James W. McCord Jr. had electronic bugging devices and are served by a high-priced attorney for a 'country club'. McCord describes himself in court at the arraignment as having recently left the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the others are also shown to have links to the CIA. Woodward binds E with the burglars. Howard Hunt, former CIA employee, and President Richard Nixon’s White House lawyer, Charles Colson.
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Another Post reporter, Carl Bernstein, was assigned to cover the Watergate story with Woodward. The two young men are unwilling partners, but work together well. Benjamin Bradlee, executive editor, claims their work lacks credible sources and is not worthy of the front page of the Post, but he encourages further research.
Woodward meets a senior government official, an anonymous source he has used before and refers to as 'Deep Throat'. They meet in an underground parking garage at night, talking secretly, using a flag hidden in a balcony flowerpot to indicate meetings. In riddles and metaphors, Deep Throat talks, ignoring substantial facts about the Watergate break-in, but continues to advise Woodward to 'follow the money'.
Woodward and Bernstein are able to link the five burglars to illegal activities around Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP or, more usual at the time, CREEP) campaign donations. This includes a $25,000 check paid by Kenneth H. Dahlberg, who was found by Miami authorities while investigating the Miami-based burglars. Still, the investigation and its focus on sources, such as Deep Throat, doubt Bradlee and others at the article, asking why the Nixon administration should break the law when the President is almost certain to beat his rival, George McGovern, the Democratic candidate.
Via former CREEP treasurer Hugh W. Sloan, Jr., Woodward and Bernstein, White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, 'the second most powerful man in this world', and former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, now head of CREEP, are connected by a hundred thousand dollars slush fund. They discover that as Nixon lagged Edmund Muskie in the polls, CREEP funded a 'ratfucking' effort to sabotage Democratic presidential candidates a year before the Watergate burglary.
While the demand for thoroughness by Bradlee forces the reporters to acquire other sources to validate the Haldeman connection, the White House issues a non-denial denial of the above-the-fold story of the Post. The editor goes on to promote inquiry.
Woodward again meets Deep Throat secretly and insists that he be less evasive. Deep Throat reveals that the Watergate break-in and cover-up were masterminded by Haldeman. He also notes that the cover-up was not only to camouflage the presence of CREEP, but also to mask 'covert operations' involving 'the entire intelligence community of the United States', including the CIA and FBI. He warns Woodward and Bernstein that there is a risk to their lives, and to others. When the two pass this on to Bradlee, despite the possibility of Nixon's re-election, he encourages them to proceed.
The movie is coming to an end. Bernstein and Woodward form the complete story on January 20, 1973, while a TV in the foreground shows Nixon taking the oath of office for his second term as president. A montage of the following year's Watergate-related teletype titles is seen, ending with the resignation of Nixon and the inauguration on August 9, 1974, of Vice President Gerald Ford.
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