WASHINGTON – Legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein said Donald🉐 Trump’s presidency is🦩 most characterized by his lies.
“There’s no reason to believe almost anything Donald Trump says, because what we know is that the president of the United States and his presidency is characterized, above all else, by the lying of the president of the United States,” Bernstein told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“That doesn’t mean that lying by the president is a crime. It does mean that we see him covering up events, but not necessarily criminally covering up events.”
The stinging rebuke of the commander-in-chief comes in the context of Special Counsel Robert Muওeller’s Russia probe of the Trump campaign.
Be😼rnstein and reporting partner Bob Woodward found parallels between the Watergate probe that took dow🧸n President Nixon and the ongoing Russia investigation.
Trump said pꦆublicly he doesn’t plan to𒐪 fire Mueller to shut down the probe that has led t🅺o four indictments, but Bernstein is skeptical.
“He has expressed, I’m told by people in the White House, the desire to fire Mueller, the desire to pardon people under investigation, including his family,” Bernstein said.
Trump’s la🃏wyers are keeping him in c🍬heck – for now, he said.
“They have an out-of-control client,” ಌBernstein said. “The president of the United States, in their view, is out of control a good deal of the time, especially when it comes to this investigation.”
Woodward said Trump’s repeated attacks on the FBI are a “mi✤stake,” just like Nixon’s animus toward the Watergate special counsel.
B💟ut the Washington Post journalist pushed back at assertions by Democrats – specifically Sen. D♔ianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) – that there’s an obstruction of justice case building against Trump.
“I’m not sure Senator Feinstein is quite right,” Woodward said. “I think that it’s possible this will lead to an obstruction of justice case, but we have not seen the evidence.”
Trump has repeatedly denied any collu♍sion between himself and the Russians to influence the outcome of t♏he 2016 presidential election.