The White House counsel who became a star witness against former President Richard Nixon during the Senate Watergate hearings hit back at President Trump on Sunday after Trump referred to him as a “rat.”
“@realDonaldTrump (I still have trouble using the title Mr. President for someone installed by Putin), I doubt you have ANY IDEA what McGahn has told Mueller,” John Dean wrote on Twitter. “Also, Nixon knew I was meeting with prosecutors, b/c I told him. However, he didn’t think I would tell them the truth!”
@realDonaldTrump (I still have trouble using the title Mr. President for someone installed by Putin), I doubt you have ANY IDEA what McGahn has told Mueller. Also, Nixon knew I was meeting with prosecutors, b/c I told him. However, he didn’t think I would tell them the truth!
— John Dean (@JohnWDean) August 19, 2018
Trump made the comparison following a New York Times report that said White House counsel Don McGahn had provided about 30 hours of testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of federal investigators running the Russia probe in at least three interviews over the past nine months. The newspaper described McGahn’s interviews as “unusual” given how closely attorneys tend to guard the lawyer-client relationship.
“The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type ‘RAT,'” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “But I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide.”
Dean was highly involved in the events leading up to the 1970s Watergate scandal, in which members of Nixon’s Committee for the Re-Election of the President engaged in illegal activities targeting the Democratic Party. The FBI also described him as the “master manipulator of the cover-up.”
Dean agreed to cooperate with Senate investigators and federal prosecutors after Nixon refused to grant him immunity for his role in the controversy. He served time in prison following a guilty plea to obstructing justice.
In a scathing interview with Rolling Stone published last month, Dean called Trump “shameless” while predicting Trump’s presidency will survive the Russia controversy and Mueller’s investigation.
