Carl Bernstein: No Way Is Clinton Email Investigation ‘Bigger Than Watergate’

[TomCADem]

Source: Huffington Post

Journalist Carl Bernstein says there’s “no way” the latest investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s handling of sensitive government information is comparable to the Watergate scandal that he helped expose.

FBI Director James Comey said Friday the bureau was reviewing emails found on devices belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under federal investigation over allegations that he traded sexually explicit messages with an underage girl. Republican nominee Donald Trump claimed the latest probe is “a far bigger scandal than Watergate ever was.”

* * *
Bernstein explained on CNN Friday night why the investigation into Clinton’s emails is completely different to the one he helped uncover that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon as president in 1974.

“Watergate was about a criminal President of the United States who presided over a criminal administration from the day he took office to the day he left,” he said.



Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carl-bernstein-clinton-emails_us_5814eeace4b0990edc31a2be

---

Now, a campaign coordinating with the Russians to steal opposing campaign info, then strategically disclose such e-mails for maximum effect on a third party site? Perhaps that is comparable to Watergate.

[Thinkingabout]

1. If Trump said the hacking of the emails and dumping by WikiLeaks was bigger than

Watergate I would agree. Hillary does not appear to be worried and probably knows the emails are duplicates.

[TomCADem]

2. Exactly, Here Is A Reminder of What Precipitated The Watergate Scandal...

...and notice how Trump repeatedly insists that he does not really know that the Russians are behind the leak. His buddy Stone has bragged about having back channel connections to Wikileaks. If Trump himself admits that he knows that the Russians are hacking the Democrats for his benefit with his campaign coordinating the disclosure of such stolen e-mails, and Trump denying knowledge of what is going on despite being briefed repeatedly about the Russian connection, how is this not worse than Watergate?

http://www.history.com/topics/watergate

The origins of the Watergate break-in lay in the hostile politics of the 1960s. By 1972, when Republican President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) was running for reelection, the United States was embroiled in the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and deeply divided internally. In such a harsh political climate, a forceful presidential campaign seemed essential to the president and some of his key advisers. Their aggressive tactics included what turned out to be illegal espionage. In May 1972, as evidence would later show, members of Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (known derisively as CREEP) broke into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters, stole copies of top-secret documents and bugged the office’s phones.

The wiretaps failed to work properly, however, so on June 17 the group returned to the Watergate building. As the prowlers were preparing to break into the office with a new microphone, a security guard noticed that they had taped the building’s locks. The guard called the police, who arrived just in time to catch the spies red-handed.

It was not immediately clear that the burglars were connected to the president, though suspicions were raised when detectives found copies of the reelection committee’s White House phone number among the burglars’ belongings. In August, Nixon gave a speech in which he swore that his White House staff was not involved in the break-in. Most voters believed him, and in November the president was reelected in a landslide.

[Ligyron]

12. Now that's better Tom...

[Helen Borg]

3. Does not seem the best way to phrase it though...

It is never a good idea to put in the same sentence the two things you don't want people to associate. A mere negation does not do the trick!

[TomCADem]

4. The Thing Is Watergate Is Much Closer to the Trump/Russian Arrangement...

...which is why it is so weird that Trump keeps bringing it up. The actual Watergate arose out of stealing campaign info from the Democrats by the Republican candidate, which is what is going on right now with Trump and the Russians. Indeed, given the involvement of the Russians, this is worse than Watergate. Imagine if Nixon had coordinated with the Russians to break into DNC headquarters, he would not only have been impeached, he could have been tried for treason.

[emulatorloo]

13. Trump said it was bigger than Watergate. Trump made the association

[Helen Borg]

17. That is not an argument for reiterating the association!

It's PR 101, really.

[emulatorloo]

20. That's why Bernstein was asked to comment. Response to Trump statement

Op is about Bernstein response.

No DU'er is 'reiterating' the association. Or promoting it. This is the context of Bernstein's response.

[Helen Borg]

21. Bernstein is reiterating it.

[catbyte]

5. The only way this is "bigger than Watergate" is the endless rehashing of nothing by Republicans.

Length, not importance.

[Fla Dem]

6. Of course it isn't. But what else can you expect from Trump the Bloviator? nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

7. Don't worry Carl, no reasonable person pays attention to the rotting orange pumpkin. You're

you're only repeating Trumps comment because, what, you have another book coming out you need to promote? Too long since your name's been mentioned in the news?

[Rocknrule]

8. You know what really was bigger than Watergate?

"Saddam has WMDs and was behind 9/11"-gate

[paleotn]

15. This! eom

[Cosmocat]

18. Yep - which was another step toward the "Idiocracy" we are moving toward

Nixon engages in Watergate - senators from his own party insist he needs to step down.

Reagen engages in Iran/Contra among other bullshit - he is now hailed as one of our greatest presidents after his defense of being to stupid to know what was going on.

Bush admin lies the country into our biggest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam - almost literally not even the first effort to hold him accountable.

Today - Trump

[Liberalagogo]

9. I'd like to think that

the story of the Presidential nominee of a major party going to trial for child rape would be a tad big bigger than Watergate.

But our watchdog media doesn't deem it worth mentioning.

[MyOwnPeace]

10. Hey!

You forgot the " - " thingies over "our watchdog media" sentence.

It SHOULD read:

"But our "watchdog media" doesn't deem it worth mentioning."

You see, if you had "marked" them in that way, they would immediately step up and do what honest journalists would do - get off of their a$$es and go after the true story.

But,..................................................

[tarheelsunc]

11. It could be bigger than Watergate.

Not the emails, of course, but Comey's actions and whatever motivation he may have had to take them.

[paleotn]

14. Thanks, Mr. Bernstein....

....only problem is I can't figure out if this goes in the "Well Duh" or "No Shit, Sherlock" file. "Captain Obvious" folder maybe?

Sorry for the snark, but some of us lived through Watergate and remember Tricky Dick very well.

[regnaD kciN]

16. Is this the same Carl Bernstein…

…who, only yesterday, said that there was no way Comey would have sent out that letter unless he already knew that the newly-revealed e-mails contained some sort of "bombshell?"

[Cosmocat]

19. Yes, that POS

but, you don't dare make mention of the thing he has lived off of for his entire life.

[wordpix]

22. Trump forgot to say the "scandal" is bigger than WMD's in Iraq

Fuck this shit, Trump for jail