LEGAL/OBAMA/WIRETAPPING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “In accusing former President Barack Obama of ordering Trump Tower wiretapped before last year’s presidential election, President Donald Trump compared the alleged behavior to ‘Nixon/Watergate.’
But John Dean, a former White House counsel under former President Richard Nixon who was charged with obstruction of justice for his role in Watergate, said it’s Trump – not Obama – whose behavior reminds him of the scandal that forced Nixon from office.
Dean pleaded guilty to a single felony count in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors in the Watergate trial. In an appearance on MSNBC Monday, he said the White House is ‘in a cover-up mode’ amid renewed questions about alleged connections between members of Trump’s campaign team and Russian operatives.
‘I was more stunned by the reaction of the White House and their handling of it, which seemed to me over-the-top,’ Dean said of the Trump administration’s response to Monday’s House intelligence committee hearing on the subject.
‘In fact they are in a cover-up mode. There’s just never been any question in my mind about that,’ Dean said. ‘I’ve been inside a cover-up. I know how they look and feel. And every signal they’re sending is *we’re covering this up.*”
-Gabrielle Levy, “Nixon’s Lawyer John Dean: Trump White House in ‘Cover-Up Mode’,” U.S. News, March 21, 2017