A greater scandal than Watergate

Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor and legendary TV journalist, has said the reports of the Trump government's links to Russia could be a greater scandal than Watergate.

کد خبر: ۶۶۷۶۷۸

تاریخ: ۲۷ بهمن ۱۳۹۵ - ۱۱:۴۵

Telegraph - Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor and legendary TV journalist, has said the reports of the Trump government's links to Russia could be a greater scandal than Watergate.

"Watergate is the biggest political scandal of my lifetime, until maybe now," Mr Rather wrote on Facebook in a post that went viral.

"We may look back and see, in the end, that it is at least as big as Watergate. It may become the measure by which all future scandals are judged."

Mr Rather posted the message hours after Mike Flynn resigned as National Security Adviser following reports that he had misled Vice-President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia.

Mr Flynn was interviewed by the FBI about his telephone conversations with Russia's ambassador to the US, a sign his ties to Russia had caught the attention of law enforcement officials.

The contact has been described as "potentially illegal" due to the 1799 Logan Act, which bans private US citizens from negotiating with countries with which the US is in dispute.

Increasing the pressure on the Trump administration, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.

Mr Rather noted that the questions being asked of Mr Trump are reminiscent of the Senate’s investigation of the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building.

"We are still less than a month into the Trump Presidency, and many are asking that question made famous by Tennessee Senator Howard Baker those many years ago: ‘What did the President know, and when did he know it?’” Mr Rather wrote.

Calling for an independent investigation, Mr Rather wrote: "Damn the lies, full throttle forward on the truth ... We deserve answers and those who are complicit in this scandal need to feel the full force of justice."