Jaws Drop After Trump Confessed To Two Of The Crimes That Got Richard Nixon Impeached

Donald Trump’s NBC interview appears to open him up to allegations listed in the charges of impeachment against Nixon, President Obama’s deputy Secretary of Labor Chris Lu pointed out early Friday morning. There are two specifically that Trump basically confessed to Thursday evening.

“Compare Trump/NBC interview with #4 and #8 of allegations against Nixon. As for #7, what was said to Flynn in 18 days after Yates WH visit?” Lu wrote Friday morning.

Here are the relevant Watergate Articles of Impeachment (I’ve added numbers to correspond with Lu’s comment):

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

4) interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;

8) making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct:

7) disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;

Number 4: Trump’s admitted to having asked Comey if he was under investigation.

Number 8: This and shades of it appear to have happened repeatedly in the NBC Lester Holt interview. The President misled the American people thoroughly throughout the interview.

Trump falsely claimed, “I know I’m not under investigation.”

(Trump also tweeted Friday morning, “When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?” Here he deceives the public into believing the investigation was done and he was found innocent, when in fact James Clapper is not in government anymore and can’t speak to current investigations.)

Trump also told the falsely told the public that he supports a full investigation into Russian hybrid war attack on the U.S. but he wants it done “absolutely properly.”

Trump claimed he wanted an investigation but blamed Comey for being incompetent, when reports indicate that what hastened Trump’s firing of Comey was Comey requesting more resources for the Russia investigation.

Trump denied trying to get Comey to drop the investigation, misleading the public into thinking that he supported it. He said, “I want to find out if there was a problem in the election having to do with Russia.”

Trump mislead the American people when he said last night, “If Russia did anything, I want to know that.” It has already been established by all U.S. intelligence agencies and corroborated by European IC that Russia interfered in the U.S. election. Trump knows this. But Trump keeps telling the American people that this is not a fact, and at times he pretends Democrats made it up.

Trump also, separately of this interview, took action to pursue furthering this deception of the American people by signing an executive order to investigate “voter fraud” in the 2016 election. Trump has suggested previously that millions of “illegals” voted for Hillary Clinton and this is why he lost the popular vote – there is zero evidence of this, it is a fabrication and deception. There is no indication that widespread voter fraud took place.

Trump deceived the American people Thursday night when he told Lester Holt that he had nothing to do with the Russians and this was proven because he sent a certified letter claiming this to be true. A certified letter is not a legal document in terms of verifying the content. This was a strange attempt to put an official stamp on his claims of innocence, to suggest that he has been forthcoming when he has not, and to suggest there is no problem because a certified letter exists.

Number 7: Lu related #7 to what the Trump team relayed to Flynn after Yates warned the Trump administration that Flynn was compromised by the Russians. What did they tell Flynn during the 18 days they kept him on after knowing that he was compromised by the Russians.

Did the Trump White House relay to Flynn any of the information gleaned from Yates regarding the investigation into Flynn? If so, that’s another allegation that matches with allegations used in the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

Donald Trump is currently at this writing on another Twitter rant, and it appears that he is trying to intimidate a witness, which is another allegation that could be added to articles of impeachment against Trump. To wit:

There are a lot of parallels to Nixon in terms of corruption, but there is also a big difference; Richard Nixon was a smart man. Donald Trump is not a smart man. Nixon’s crimes were also not against his country.

Nixon’s corruption is mirrored by Trump, but the implications are even worse in Trump’s case due to the possible collusion with a hostile foreign power.

Donald Trump made a big mistake when he fired Comey. He crossed a line that screamed “Nixon”, and this is an alarm bell that even some Republicans might not be able to ignore.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Connect with Sarah on Post,  Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.