Trump calls John Dean a 'loser' after former Nixon counsel compares him to Nixon

President Donald Trump ripped former White House Counsel John Dean as a 'loser' as Dean was appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Mueller report. 

The president tore into dean during an impromptu press availability Monday – after already tweeting about Dean earlier Monday and Sunday night and labeling him a 'sleazebag.'  

'Look, John Dean’s been a loser for many years, so I’ve been watching him on one of the networks that is not exactly Trump oriented,' Trump said in a possible reference to CNN, when asked if he had been watching Dean's testimony.

'And I guess they paid him a lot of money over the years. No, John’s been a loser for a long time. We know that. He was disbarred, and he went to prison. Other than that, he’s doing a great job,' Trump said.

Oddly though, CNN, with whom Dean has a paid contract, did not feature his testimony, instead showing coverage of a helicopter crash in Manhattan.

With Democrats hoping to use Dean as a cudgel to keep attention on the Mueller report in the absence of testimony by special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump also attacked Dean as 'disgraced,' while Republican allies on the committee tried to portray him as out for money or for blasting out Nixon comparisons indiscriminately.

Through a Watergate plea deal where he testified against former associates, Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, and served four months at the Ft. Holabird Army base in Baltimore. 

During one tense exchange with Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, Jordan said Dean had gone to prison, and Dean shot back that he had not.    

Wednesday afternoon, the grey-haired former Nixon counsel tangled with House Republicans who brought up his own tweets and past statements to try to knock down his own testimony comparing President Trump's conduct to Richard Nixon's. 

Dean went back to Congress Monday and delivered testimony that drew 'remarkable parallels' between the Watergate cover-up and the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe – his first Judiciary Committee appearance since 1974.

'This hearing is now hearing from the 70s and they want their star witness back,' joked Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia at the start of the hearing that focused on potential obstruction of justice by Trump.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a staunch Trump defender, tried to blunt Dean by bringing up past statements calling for President George W. Bush to be impeached over wiretapping.   

'How many American presidents have you accused of being Richard Nixon?' Gaetz asked him.

'I actually wrote a book about Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney with the title Worse Than Watergate,' Dean replied. 

Gaetz then brought up Dean's role as a paid CNN contributor – a point Trump also made on Twitter.  

'I would like to know how much money he makes off of making these accusations and exploiting them for his economic benefit,' Gaetz said during heated questioning.

The seasoned Dean was unfazed. 'Mr. Gates, I appreciate you were not born at the time this all happened. It's not by choice that I've done a lot of this, it's that I've been dragged into,' Dean replied. 

'How do Democrats plan to pay for Medicare for all? Well I figured if we were going to ask you about stuff you don't know about we'd start with the big stuff,' Gaetz continued.   

'Who, the Democrats, or which candidate, can you be more specific?' Dean responded.

'Well get specific to Nixon since that appears to be why you're here?' asked Gaetz. 

'Well actually Nixon did have a health care plan,' replied Dean, earning laughs from the hearing room crowd.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), brought up Dean's recent tweets, including one at a memorial service along with Speaker Nancy Pelosi where he called her 'right' on impeachment and another where he called Trump 'incapable of accomplishing anything' during a cover-up of 'criminal behavior.' 

'As POTUS he is incapable of accomplishing anything. When you made that statement, what did you have in mind? Thinking about the 3.2 percent economic growth rate we had in the last quarter? Thinking about the fact we got the lowest unemployment in 50 years? How about the fact that hostages are back from North Korea?' Jordan said, rattling off Trump's campaign talking points and pointing to economic growth.

Dean delivered a dry response: 'I think that under the parliamentary rules of the House, I'm refrained from addressing a full answer to your question,' he said. 

Dean, a star witness of the Watergate hearings in 1973, appeared as a key witness before the House Judiciary Committee, which began its Mueller hearings Monday.

In prepared testimony, Dean, who helped bring down Nixon with his testimony generations ago, compared the Mueller report to the 'Watergate Road Map' outlining crimes by Nixon and associates.

'Special Counsel Mueller has provided this committee a road map,' Dean said in prepared testimony.

President Trump had the hearing very much on his radar, tweeting about it just as Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler delivered his opening statement. 

'Can't believe they are bringing in John Dean, the disgraced Nixon White House Counsel who is a paid CNN contributor,' Trump wrote. 'No Collusion - No Obstruction! Democrats just want a do-over which they'll never get!'

The committee released Dean's searing indictment of Trump's conduct hours after the president got a jump on the House Judiciary's Mueller hearings Monday, labeling star witness John Dean of Watergate fame a 'sleazebag attorney.'

Dean's testimony is a side-by-side comparison between the two incidents.

Both, he said, had 'underlying events' – Russia's election interference, and the Watergate break-in.

In both, the white house counsel was 'implicated in coverup activity.' Dean then examines the Comey firing, which he likens to Nixon firing Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox – an event McGahn referenced in comments to investigators.

Dean also cites the time Nixon asked his chief of staff to have the CIA ask the FBI not to go any further in its investigation.

He also Mueller report testimony that Trump directed McGahn write a memo disputed that Trump had ever asked McGahn to fire Mueller. 'This is much like Richard Nixon's attempt to get me to write a phony report exonerating the White House from any involvement in Watergate,' he planned to say.

He compared the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians and the initial Trump-drafted statement about it to a false Watergate press statement saying the Watergate burglars 'were not operating either on our behalf or with our consent.' 

On the question of whether Trump dangled pardons before potential witnesses, Dean says Nixon 'used the possibility of a presidential pardon to keep witnesses rom fully testifying in legal proceedings.' 

The insult came as Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler was set to convene the first in a series of hearings on the Mueller report and its findings – though without a scheduled appearance by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

With Dean, whose Watergate testimony riveted the nation and helped bring down President Nixon, and former U.S. attorneys set to testify, the hearings are seen as a possible prelude to – or substitute for – impeachment proceedings. 

Trump called out the hearing as he blasted Democrats on Twitter. 

'For two years all the Democrats talked about was the Mueller Report, because they knew that it was loaded up with 13 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, later increased to 18,' Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday night.