'The POTUS Is A NITWIT!' Watergate's John Dean Mocks Trump Over Impeachment Flub
John Dean, the former White House counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, slammed President Donald Trump on Wednesday for failing to grasp how impeachment works.
Trump claimed that if the House was to try and impeach him, he would “first head to the U.S. Supreme Court” to block the process.
Dean, dubbed the “master manipulator” of the Watergate scandal before turning on Nixon and cooperating with the investigation, said that’s not how the process works:
Troubling when the POTUS is a NITWIT! President Trump Says He Would Fight Impeachment in the Supreme Court. That's Not How It Works - TIME https://t.co/tqPPzOw1sx
— John Dean (@JohnWDean) April 24, 2019
The Constitution stipulates that the House has “sole power of impeachment” and the Senate the “the sole power to try all impeachments,” with the chief justice of the Supreme Court presiding over the proceedings. In addition, the Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that courts have no role in the impeachment process.
Dean also linked to a Time magazine article that cited Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe, who was similarly harsh in his assessment:
Trump’s idiocy won’t serve him well as we move through the #impeachment process. Not even a SCOTUS filled with Trump appointees would get in the way of the House or Senate, where CJ Roberts would preside over Trump’s Impeachment Trial. My book with @JoshuaMatz8 lays it all out. https://t.co/eXTCX2wFnZ
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 24, 2019
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
