Saturday Night Massacre

The Saturday Night Massacre was the term given by political commentators^[1] to U.S. President Richard Nixon's executive dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973 during the Watergate scandal.
^{A lot more to it, really: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Massacre}

On October 20, 1973, at the height of the Watergate scandal, an event called the "Saturday Night Massacre" took place at the hands of sitting president Richard Nixon. He ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Cox had denied President Nixon's request that instead of turning over recorded conversations he accept summarizations of the Watergate tapes. Rather than execute this order, Richardson resigned his position from the Justice Department in protest. When Assistant Attorney General William Ruckelshaus refused to comply with President Nixon's request, Nixon fired him, although Ruckelshaus had already written a letter of resignation. The order to fire Cox was ultimately carried out by Solicitor General Robert Bork, but much damage had been done. In the immediate aftermath of the event, Richardson and Ruckelshaus held a live, televised press conference in which Richardson declared, "At stake, in the final analysis, is the very integrity of the governmental processes I came to the Department of Justice to help restore."