John Dean? That John Dean, the felon?

In PJ Media Matt Margolis reports on Matt Gaetz's questioning of John Dean in the House Judiciary Committee yesterday.

GAETZ: Do you have personal knowledge regarding the truth or falsity of a single material fact in the Mueller Report?
DEAN: I think if you recall the first thing I said I’m not here as a fact witness.

GAETZ: You’re here to provide historical context.

DEAN: Exactly.

GAETZ: And throughout history, you accuse presidents of acting like Richard Nixon and you make money off of it.

DEAN: Not all presidents, no.

GAETZ: But, a few. More than one.

DEAN: Those who do act like him I point it out.

So, John Dean said that he'll point out those who act like Nixon, and cited illegal wiretapping under Bush as Nixonian behavior that was impeachable. Had I had the opportunity to question Mr. Dean—and I would love such an opportunity in light of his testimony today—I’d ask him if he ever accused Barack Obama of being like Richard Nixon for illegal wiretapping by his administration. We know it happened. Documents leaked by Edward Snowden proved that Barack Obama embraced his inner Big Brother during his presidency and expanded surveillance programs that began in the Bush administration into a terrifying domestic surveillance program of massive scope.

In 2013, The Washington Post detailed the program code-named PRISM, under which the NSA and FBI were “extracting audio and video chats, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets” from the servers of nine American internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and Apple. Under Obama, the NSA was also collecting the phone records of millions of Americans. This wasn’t targeted surveillance. This was broad, untargeted surveillance right out of a George Orwell novel.

Despite claiming he points out Nixonian behavior when he sees it, I can’t seem to find any essays or books by John Dean criticizing Obama for his huge expansion of domestic surveillance and I can’t find a single quote from Dean calling for Obama to be impeached for it either. What he did do is say that “The Obama Administration has been tougher on those who leak classified information.” After Snowden exposed Obama’s domestic spying, Dean was more concerned with the leaks than what he previously called impeachable actions.

Dean’s hypocrisy aside, Gaetz held nothing back, and accused Dean of being a Democrat prop. “You are functionally here as a prop. Because [the Democrats] can’t impeach President Trump because 70 percent of Democrats want something that 60 percent of Americans don’t,” Gaetz said. “So they’re in this no-win situation and you sit before us here with no knowledge of a single fact on the Mueller Report on a hearing entitled ‘Lessons from The Mueller Report.’”

John Dean is not an objective expert, he’s an anti-GOP hack and CNN contributor who has basically concluded that being a Republican is an impeachable offense.

Read more here.