Worse than Watergate

Tape of Trump is enough to impeach him says reporter who brought down Nixon

DONALD Trump’s bid to overturn Georgia’s election result is far worse than Watergate, according to the journalist who brought down Richard Nixon.

Carl Bernstein said the tape of the US president demanding that election officials find him enough votes to win was the ‘ultimate smoking gun’.

It showed Mr Trump was ‘willing to undermine the electoral system and illegally, improperly, and immorally try to instigate a coup’.

Mr Bernstein is best known for working with Bob Woodward to uncover the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post in 1972.

In a telephone call, Mr Trump told Georgia election officials to ‘just find 11,780 votes’, enough to take him ahead of Joe Biden. A recording was made public before Congress is due to certify the election returns tomorrow.

Around 140 representatives and at least 12 senators have said they will object to the result.

Although the move will fail it will appeal to Mr Trump’s base and demonstrate the iron grip he has on the Republican Party. Mr Bernstein told CNN the tape was ‘not deja vu’ but ‘something far worse than occured in Watergate’.

He added: ‘In any other presidency, this tape would be evidence enough to result in the impeachment of the President of the United States, his conviction in the Senate, and really an immediate call by the members of Congress – including of his own party – that he resign immediately.’

Mr Trump has refused to concede the election to Mr Biden, who will take over on January 20.

Instead, he has embarked on dozens of losing court cases and immersed himself in outlandish conspiracy theories.

Yesterday, all ten living former defence secretaries signed a letter warning that trying to use the military to overturn Mr Biden’s victory was ‘unlawful and unconstitutional’. The idea of declaring martial law was raised by Mr Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.