John Dean, counselor to former President Richard Nixon and a key figure in the Watergate scandal, says the latest developments surrounding President Donald Trump look familiar.
“It looks like it’s very bad for the president, for Mr. Trump,” Dean told CNN on Tuesday. “He’s got some problems.”
Wolf Blitzer asked Dean for his thoughts on the James Comey memo that The New York Times reported in which Trump is said to have asked his then-FBI director to halt the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
“What’s happening now, these past couple of hours, does this seem familiar to you?” Blitzer asked.
Dean replied in comments that Raw Story posted online:
“Oh boy, does it. If you’ll think back, Wolf, this is a direct parallel to what was in the smoking gun tape where the President asked the CIA to intervene and halt the FBI investigation and that, of course, ended his presidency.”
The infamous “smoking gun” tape is a White House recording of Nixon and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman:
Dean, dubbed the “master manipulator” of the Watergate coverup by the FBI, has been highly critical of Trump.
In January, he predicted the Trump administration “will end in calamity.” And last year, after Trump was elected, Dean said the president was “playing out of his league” on matters of foreign policy.
“It is deeply troubling when you realize that the president-elect generally does not know what he is talking about and when he does he lies,” Dean wrote on Twitter in December.
