Watergate lawyer John Dean on Friday said the work of the House committee investigating the deadly U.S. Capitol riot “is really going to be remembered long, long, long” after it makes its recommendations public on Monday.
The House panel was “taking such a historic look at the presidency at such an important time,” Dean told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.
The committee is reportedly considering criminally referring former President Donald Trump on the charges of insurrection, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, over the violence that unfurled among his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Cooper asked Dean, the White House counsel to Richard Nixon who the FBI dubbed the “master manipulator” of the Watergate scandal after he flipped to cooperate with prosecutors against the then-president, how high the bar must be for the Department of Justice to pursue the charges against Trump.
“Of course, it has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in a federal court in a criminal proceeding like this, and that is the highest standard of proof,” Dean replied.
“So, unlike this committee, which is relying on hearsay on occasions, they have to get to the source of everything,” he continued. “They do have the tools at the Department of Justice to do that, something the committee doesn’t. So naturally, they do rely on hearsay because they trust the source they’re getting it from. What is going to happen at Justice is much different than what’s happened at the committee.”
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