In an interview with CNN broadcast on Saturday, former White House Counsel John Dean — who served President Richard Nixon — discussed South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s defense of President Donald Trump .
Per Raw Story , Graham recently argued that there is no concrete evidence against Trump, suggesting that the House Democrats’ case for impeachment is based largely on hearsay, which does not hold up in court.
“The trial in the Senate should mirror trials all over America,” Graham argued, “hearsay is not admitted unless there’s a valid exception — in any trial in America.”
According to Graham, nearly all testimonies being used in the impeachment inquiry “violate” the hearsay rule.
According to Dean, Graham will not be able to get the Senate to adopt the rule.
“I don’t think Lindsey has the chops in the Senate to get that rule ever adopted by the Senate for an impeachment trial,” he said.
The former Nixon White House counsel explained that a legal precedent has been set by prior impeachment trials, which suggests that the rules cannot be changed to help Trump.
“They’ve got the precedent of several trials before, there were a number of judges who have been impeached where they laid the rules down there,” he explained.
“They didn’t adopt any such special rules for those proceedings, they’re not going to for this one,” Dean asserted.
The legal expert has previously compared Trump’s alleged crimes to Nixon’s, arguing that the former president would never — not even “in his darkest thoughts” — think about doing what Trump has done.
According to Dean, House Democrats have a solid case against the president, and smoking gun evidence already exists, and the transcript of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in and of itself evidence that Trump needs to be impeached.
According to House Democrats — and, as the complaint filed by an intelligence community whistleblower suggests — Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to launch investigations into his political opponents. The president is being accused of freezing military aid to pressure the Ukrainians to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump wanted the Bidens to be investigated in order to damage the former vice president’s White House bid, according to Democrats, effectively inviting foreign meddling in the 2020 presidential election. High-ranking Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are thought to have been involved in the president’s efforts.
So Rudy owns The Donald. Blackmailing the President of the United States on Fox News is fitting! Does America really want a POTUS owned by Rudy Giuliani. Wonder if Rudy has a guaranteed pardon if Lev or Igor turn on him in the SDNY? Trump’s presidency is like a Mafia soap opera! https://t.co/3kpsp1SSYx
— John W. Dean (@JohnWDean) November 25, 2019
Trump and his Republican allies claim House Democrats, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, launched a baseless investigation in an effort to remove the president from office without beating him at the ballot box.