Watergate legends Woodward and Bernstein explain why Trump is worse than Nixon ahead of J6 public hearings
CNN's Anderson Cooper on Friday re-united three of the key figures from the Watergate scandal that resulted in President Richard Nixon resigning from office in disgrace.
Cooper interviewed former White House counsel John Dean alongside journalists Robert Woodward and Carl Berstein, the authors of the 1974 book All the President's Men, which was turned into a hit 1976 movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
Cooper asked Bernstein about the indictment of former Trump aide Peter Navarro.
"Well, I think it's a big deal in that it indicates the defiance of all of the people around Donald Trump to tell the story of what happened and especially the story of attempting to keep Joe Biden from succeeding to the presidency," Bernstein said.
"So what we have is really a seditious president of the United States trying to foment insurrection to keep his successor from taking office, staging a coup — the president of the United States," he explained. "And what the Jan. 6th committee is doing, I think from Bob's reporting, my reporting, is establishing a timeline that will show definitively how Donald Trump, his lawyers, and those closest to him attempted to stage this coup so there would be no real election of the president of the United States and Trump would continue to be in office."
Woodward offered his analysis.
"It is a crime to subvert the lawful function of government," he noted. "It is not ambiguous. It goes back 100 years, Chief Justice Taft of all people, saying that this is exactly the sort of trickery and deceit that is a crime," he said. "And, you know, the section is 371 of the criminal code. We have, in hand, all the evidence and the Justice Department realizes this, as does the Jan. 6th committee, to show that this was an organized conspiracy to subvert democracy. Can't say it anymore directly."
Bernstein said Trump is worse than Nixon.
"We are in a situation that we have never been in as residents in the United States, even under Richard Nixon," Bernstein said. "Richard Nixon got on a helicopter and agreed, because he knew he had to resign, got on the helicopter and left town. Donald Trump did something no president has ever done, he said 'I'm going to stay here behind this desk, I am not going to admit that I lost the election, I am going to stay here and remain the president of the United States past the point where Joe Biden, the elected president of the United States, was supposed to take office."
"This is a conspiracy led by a president of the United States such as we have never seen. That is why it is a seditious act," he explained. "That is why Trump is a seditious president in addition to what Bob is saying, being a criminal president."
"So we're in territory here that we have never seen. And even more remarkable is that the Republican Party, unlike with Richard Nixon, which helped push Richard Nixon out of office and forced him to resign, this Republican Party today is supporting Donald Trump, supporting his insurrection, trying to undermine the Jan. 6th committee," he said. "So we now have, instead of a real democratic, lower case system, in which the institutions of government try to come up with the truth about what happened, as in Watergate. We now have one of the political parties dedicated to suppressing the truth."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
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