Veteran Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein accused Attorney General William Barr of aiding President Donald Trump in a “cover-up” on Sunday.
Trump finally has his Roy Cohn, Bernstein said, referring to Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy’s ruthless chief counsel during the Communist witch hunts in the 1950s. Cohn was also Trump’s onetime personal attorney, fixer and mentor. Cohn was disbarred in 1986 for unethical conduct and died weeks later.
Bernstein called Trump probably “the most authoritarian president” in the history of the United States, and said he has “nothing but contempt for Democratic traditions and the rule of law.”
“It’s obvious to anyone who watches, anyone who looks at the facts, reads the Mueller report, the obstruction part, particularly. We are in the midst of a continuing cover-up by the president, aided and abetted by the attorney general of the United States,” Bernstein said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
When Trump was frustrated with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to shield him from the Robert Mueller investigation last year, he demanded: “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump expected Sessions to be loyal to him personally, rather than to the presidency or the nation, according to The New York Times.
With Sessions gone, Trump is in better stead with Barr.
“Trump said he wanted his Roy Cohn, he’s got him now in the attorney general,” said Bernstein.
Check out the full interview in the video above.
