Chappaquiddick | Under Oath
5/19/202639 min
Ted Kennedy thinks he has put the mysterious incident on Chappaquiddick behind him, when a new legal threat emerges that threatens to destroy his political future.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsLindsey Graham· Host0:00
American Scandal uses dramatizations that are based on true events. Some elements, including dialogue, might be invented, but everything is based on historical research. [gentle music] It's late July 1969 in Martha's Vineyard. Edmund Dinis kicks back on the olive green La-Z-Boy reclining chair in his living room. As the district attorney for Southern Massachusetts, he doesn't get much time to relax, and even now he's got work on his mind. On the couch nearby is his friend, the famed trial lawyer F. Lee Bailey. Dinis has invited him here to ask for help with a difficult case. It's been two weeks since the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in a car crash on Chappaquiddick Island, and a week since Senator Ted Kennedy pled guilty to leaving the scene of the accident. Dinis has kept his distance from the investigation, and when Kennedy walked away with probation and a suspended sentence, Dinis had hoped that that would be the end of the matter. But then just hours after his appearance in court, Kennedy went on national TV in an attempt to salvage his political career, and that's when things went sideways. The media and much of the public were baffled by his incoherent explanation for his behavior after the crash, and now every day seems to bring a new story about Kennedy's history of heavy drinking and reckless driving. So there's