‘Potentially impeachable’: Ex-aide to Ken Starr says Trump’s offenses no different than Nixon’s

Paul Rosenzweig, former senior counsel to Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr, told CNN on Monday that President Donald Trump's request to Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to put U.S. attorney and presidential ally Geoffrey Berman in charge of the Southern District of New York's criminal investigation into the Trump Organization was an echo of Nixon, and rose to a "potentially impeachable" offense.

"It's really hard to come up with an innocent explanation for asking somebody to un-recuse from a recusal that seems wholly appropriate," said Rosenzweig, predicting that the story would spur new investigations by both the SDNY and Congress.

"This sort of abuse of power, this sort of violation of the independence of the Department of justice in a case involving his very own conduct is precisely the sort of authoritarian activity that the impeachment process was intended to stand as a bullwark against," he added.

"It's of a piece with the activity that led to the impeachment proceedings against Nixon and led to the impeachment proceedings against Clinton," Rosenzweig went on after a deep pause, saying the evidence wasn't in yet. "If the facts prove out? This is potentially impeachable."

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