Messy partisan hearing...

Republicans attack Watergate's John Dean in messy partisan hearing

Democrats had hoped the hearing with Nixon's former White House counsel would draw attention to the substance of Mueller’s findings.

By KYLE CHENEY

John Dean, Congress’ star Watergate witness, returned to Capitol Hill on Monday to help Democrats link President Donald Trump to one of the biggest presidential scandals in modern history.

But Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee ensured that what unfolded was an at-times heated relitigation of Dean’s role in Watergate more than 40 years ago, questioning his honor, pointing to his own admitted obstruction of justice at that time and accusing him of profiting off his Watergate experience as a television commentator who frequently criticizes Trump.

“How much money do you make from CNN?” swiped Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who added, “Mr. Dean has made a cottage industry of accusing presidents of acting like Richard Nixon.”

Democrats had hoped the hearing would draw attention to the substance of Mueller’s findings on obstruction of justice. But the most memorable moments of the hearing turned out to be the sharp attacks by Republicans on the 80-year-old Dean, who was Nixon’s White House counsel.

“You’re no fall guy in the Watergate scandal,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said, adding, “The U.S. attorney said you were the center of criminality.”

Dean replied that he attempted to “break up the Watergate cover-up when” he “realized we were on the wrong side of the law.”

“It was an unpleasant role to have to fill,” he said. “But I do know the subject pretty well.”

Trump lashed out at Dean before the hearing, tweeting that he “can’t believe they are bringing in John Dean, the disgraced Nixon White House Counsel who is a paid CNN contributor. No Collusion - No Obstruction! Democrats just want a do-over which they’ll never get!”

It was the second time the president tweeted about Dean in the lead-up to his testimony. On Sunday night, Trump called Dean a “sleazebag attorney” in a series of posts criticizing Democrats.

Most of the day played out like two simultaneous hearings, with Democrats reading excerpts from the Mueller report and asking the former prosecutors to opine on potential criminal actions by Trump. Republicans alternated between savaging Dean’s credibility and asking their own witness, Heritage Foundation legal scholar John Malcolm, about reasons why Mueller’s evidence fell short of proving Trump obstructed justice.

During the hearing, Dean compared several of Mueller’s findings with his own experiences in Watergate. He was buttressed by two former federal prosecutors — Joyce White Vance and Barb McQuade — who elaborated on why they believed Mueller’s evidence amounted to criminal obstruction of justice. Democrats asked the three former prosecutors repeatedly to explain the legal underpinnings for why some of the actions identified in Mueller’s report could amount to obstruction of justice.

Though Democrats say the hearing is the first step in a broader campaign to convince the public that the president broke the law and interfered in a probe into a foreign power’s attempt to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, they also acknowledged that it was in part brought about because of the White House’s repeated refusal to make Mueller’s own central witnesses available.

Mueller’s report found “substantial evidence” that Trump took several actions that could amount to obstruction of justice — but the former special counsel declined to recommend charges, citing a Justice Department policy that says a sitting president cannot be indicted. The former special counsel also pointedly declined to “exonerate” Trump and has pointed out that the DOJ policy recommends impeachment as the method to hold presidents accountable.

To reach that conclusion, Mueller relied on testimony from former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn. But Trump has ordered McGahn to refuse to cooperate with Democrats’ efforts to bring him in for public testimony, and McGahn has complied.