Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks said Donald Trump’s push to strip the security clearance of former intelligence officials is eerily similar to the tactics used by Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
“It is exactly the same thing,” Wine-Banks said during an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. “It is something that he didn’t get away with during the Watergate era.”
On Wednesday, Trump revoked former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance as political payback for Brennan’s public criticisms of the president.
Jill Wine-Banks explained how this behavior mirrors Nixon’s, and she said Trump should be held accountable in the same way.
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Former Watergate prosecutor says Trump needs to be held accountable like Nixon was. #ctl #p2 #Trump #Nixon pic.twitter.com/Gsoggu3LgY
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) August 17, 2018
Wine-Banks said:
It is exactly the same thing. And it is something that [Nixon] didn’t get away with during the Watergate era and that the president shouldn’t be allowed to get away with. We need more people who will stand up and tell the truth to Donald Trump, not fewer. Instead of taking away security clearances, he should be listening to them. When Nixon used the enemies list, he used the IRS to go after his reported enemies which included mainly a lot of journalists and that seems to be one of the big targets of Donald Trump. But now he’s actually going against civil servants and the intelligence community, which puts at risk our national security. Not just the freedom of the press, but the freedom of our whole country is at risk with this. So it’s probably even more serious than Watergate.
Trump’s presidency is on the verge of collapse
From so many different legal and political angles, Donald Trump’s presidency is on the verge of collapse. He may not verbally acknowledge this, but his panicked behavior has made it abundantly clear.
From his increasingly erratic tweets to his targeting of former intelligence officials to his repeated efforts to undermine Robert Mueller’s investigation, Trump is not acting like a man who knows he is innocent.
As Donald Trump’s behavior continues to deteriorate, the threat he poses to the rule of law and the national security of the United States continues to increase. His presidency should share the same fate as Richard Nixon’s and be tossed into the scrap heap of history.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
