The Supreme Court faces even higher stakes in settling the question surrounding former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in D.C. than it did in the Richard Nixon Watergate tapes matter, former Nixon White House counsel John Dean argued on CNN Thursday.
This comes as special counsel Jack Smith pushes on with his request for the Supreme Court to expedite a review of Trump's claims to presidential immunity, over the objections of Trump himself.
"This latest filing from the special council once again cites U.S. v. Nixon as precedent for a swift decision," said anchor Pamela Brown, noting that Smith wrote in the filing, "Here the stakes are as high if not higher."
"Do you agree with that assessment?" she asked.
"I think they are higher, actually, than U.S. v. Nixon," said Dean. "What we were seeking in the Nixon case were 64 secretly recorded conversations with aides. There were about a half a dozen defendants who were about ready to go to trial, and the prosecutor wanted that set of tapes, 64 tapes to use in the trial. He had no knowledge that, for example, it would force Nixon to resign when the information was released in those tapes. But he was just preparing for trial and went directly to the Supreme Court ... and got a ruling 60 days later. So it was a — it is a powerful precedent. And Smith is relying on it."
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"In your view, is the Supreme Court likely to grant Jack Smith's request here?" asked Brown.
"I think they will," said Dean. "It would be very telling, politically, if for some reason they didn't. They theoretically could wait until the Court of Appeals acted, saying they wanted it fully briefed and they wanted to see what the Court of Appeals, where they came out on it. But I think that delay so plays into Trump's hand. And it's so conspicuous to all of us now that Trump's M.O. is to indeed delay, delay, delay. It'll be telling politically if they are influenced at all by Trump. And Pam, they have not been to date."
Watch the video below or at the link right here.
John Dean on the Supreme Court's task regarding presidential immunitywww.youtube.com
