Watergate ‘Master Manipulator’ Spots What Republicans Didn’t Do During Michael Cohen Hearing

John Dean, the former attorney for President Richard M. Nixon who was dubbed the “master manipulator” of the Watergate scandal by the FBI, noticed one thing Republican lawmakers didn’t do on Wednesday.

As they questioned Michael Cohen, the disgraced former attorney for President Donald Trump, “they didn’t defend the president,” Dean told CNN’s Don Lemon.

“What they did is attack the witness,” Dean said. “That shows a certain weakness and it also showed a lot of concern by Republicans.”

Republicans questioning Cohen “had nothing to offer in defense of the president’s character,” Dean said.

Like Cohen, Dean was a member of the president’s inner circle. He also turned on his onetime boss and cooperated with prosecutors.

Last year, he noted another similarity between himself and Cohen.

“When I became a witness, there was a huge effort to discredit me,” Dean said at the time. “It was just my word against Nixon’s until the tape came out, and they worked mightily to try to discredit me.”