In 1999, Taylor sought to enhance the former's president's image when he authorized the release of 124 Nixon-era White House tapes regarding the Watergate scandal and Nixon's involvement in it.

[6] Taylor acknowledged, "The entire record of Watergate needs to be viewed through the prism of [the] Vietnam [War] ... Richard Nixon was a war-time president.

[7] During that period, a plan to reunite the president's scattered records was undertaken, but largely fell apart due to a court case regarding a $14 million donation from Bebe Rebozo, a close friend of Nixon and his wife.

[7] The issue was resolved, beginning in 2003, when the United States Congress voted to repeal a law that prevented Nixon and his family from controlling presidential records dating from 1969 to 1974.

[8] Taylor labeled it as "a first step in abolishing the anomaly" of Nixon being the only president between Herbert Hoover and Bill Clinton without a government-operated library.

[2] He was subsequently named vicar of St. John's Episcopal Church and School in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, in 2004 by the Right Reverend J. Jon Bruno.