Former White House counsel John Dean said Wednesday he was not sure whether former FBI Director James Comey's memo was proof of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, but he noted President Richard Nixon's impeachment offenses in 1974 included interfering with the agency.
"Given the fact that we don't know what the facts are, and we have jurisdictional law that is mushy, I can't really say that there is an obstruction of justice, Dean, 78, who was implicated in the Watergate scandal, told Brooke Baldwin on CNN.
"I can say politically that Nixon, however, was impeached based on Article 1, paragraph 4, for interference with the FBI.
"So, it is an impeachable offense."
The House Judiciary Committee adopted the articles of impeachment July 27, 1974. Nixon resigned Aug. 9, 1974.
In 1973, Dean pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of justice, serving his sentence in a federal Army post in Maryland.
He had testified before the Senate Watergate Committee on his role in the scandal.
"I was trying to get Nixon to end the cover-up and trying to get his attention by telling him of the seriousness of the problem," Dean explained after Baldwin played a tape of a conversation with Nixon on March 21, 1973, in the Oval Office.
"I tried to raise every problem we had that I could think up off the top of my head – and I got a lot of information in a short time before I met with him.
"I couldn't convince him," he said. "I couldn't turn him.
"I think that's the morning I met Richard Nixon – and he wasn't the man I expected."
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