John Dean: ‘There is enough evidence’ to impeach Trump

John Dean, the former White House counsel for President Nixon, says there “is enough evidence” for President Trump to be impeached. 

Dean, who testified against Nixon during the Watergate scandal, told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview published Monday that Trump’s request for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “look into” former Vice President Joe Biden reaches the threshold to qualify for impeachment. 

“There is enough evidence of an abuse of power, a breach of his oath of office,” Dean said. “What they need to do is get evidence that fleshes it out. They need to show exactly what was going on.”

{mosads}To speed up the impeachment process, the former White House counsel added that congressional investigators need someone comparable to Dean during the Watergate investigation with extensive White House knowledge to testify against the president.

After initially covering up for Nixon’s crimes, Dean cooperated with prosecutors and detailed the  violations the president and his staff committed during blockbuster Senate testimony. About a year later, Nixon resigned. 

Dean told the newspaper he hoped Don McGahn — the former White House counsel and chief counsel for Trump’s campaign — would step up after resigning last October.

“Maybe McGahn will come forward,” Dean said. “He’s got to understand it is not a pleasant route. No one likes to be a tattletale. No one really wants to be a whistleblower unless they’re deeply offended.”

The president’s call with Zelensky made up the content of a whistleblower report released to Congress last week. Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden and Biden’s son’s connections in the Ukraine, as Biden’s son served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.  

News of the call, which came shortly after Trump delayed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine that had been approved by Congress, sparked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to launch an official impeachment inquiry last week.