Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein on Sunday called President Trump “the most authoritarian president” in U.S. history and alleged an “ongoing cover-up” that hasn’t faced enough congressional pushback.
“There has been no real bipartisan investigation of the most authoritarian president in our history, probably,” Bernstein, whose work at The Washington Post helped uncover the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
{mosads}“Right now, it’s obvious to anyone that watches, anyone who looks at the facts, reads the Mueller report, the obstruction part particularly: We are in the midst of a continued cover-up by the president, aided and abetted by the attorney general of the United States,” he said.
The Justice Department declined to comment, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Special counsel Robert Mueller did not make a determination in his 448-page report about whether Trump obstructed justice. But Mueller also said that the report “does not exonerate” the president.
Attorney General William Barr’s four-page letter to Congress summarizing the Mueller report, sent weeks before it was made public, garnered swift backlash from congressional Democrats who said Barr acted in Trump’s interest and helped him claim total exoneration. Barr has denied those accusations.
Bernstein said the evidence against Trump is “so overwhelming.”
“This is no exoneration about his conduct, in terms of Russia and Russian contacts,” Bernstein said.
–Updated at 2:19 p.m.