Congress will have to ‘start impeachment’ process: Former Nixon counsel
BY·MICHAEL BRICESADDLER ( C ) 2018, THE WASHINGTON POST DEC08,2018- John Dean, a White House counsel under President Richard Nixon who received jail time for his role in the Watergate scandal, said Friday that allegations against President Donald Trump detailed in new court filings give Congress “little choice” other than to begin impeachment proceedings.
Dean’s comments, made during CNN’S “Erin Burnett Outfront” segment, follow the release of a legal memo from federal prosecutors in New York regarding Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Prosecutors wrote that Cohen had implicated Trump in the arrangement of hush-money payments to women during the 2016 election.
“I don’t know that this will forever disappear into some dark hole of unprosecutable presidents,” Dean said.“i think it will resurface in the Congress. I think what this totality of today’s filings show that the House is going to have little choice, the way this is going, other than to start impeachment proceedings.”
Dean, who served as Nixon’s counsel from 1970 to 1973, was chosen by the president to lead a special investigation into the Watergate scandal. He would go on to accuse Nixon of having direct involvement in the coverup, even implicating himself while detailing the ways various White House officials attempted to block investigations into the incident. He was charged with obstruction of justice, eventually serving four months in prison.