Watergate Journalist Dubs Leaked Trump Tape ’Smoking Gun’

By Staff, Agencies

A journalist who helped to break the legendary Watergate investigation, Carl Bernstein, reacted to the leaked "Trump tapes", speaking to CNN on Sunday, dubbing them "a smoking gun" and noting that this is "not déjà vu", as it's "far worse that Watergate."

"In any other conceivable moment in US history, this tape would result in the leadership of both parties demanding the immediate resignation of the President of the United States," Bernstein tweeted on Sunday.

The Watergate political scandal of 1972-1974 led to an impeachment hearing and the resignation of the US President Richard Nixon, as his campaign was accused hiring the perpetrators who broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington DC.

In 1974, the White House released an audio tape in which Nixon and campaign aide Harry 'HR' Haldeman met in the Oval Office and discussed how to prevent the FBI from investigating the break-in.

The "worse-than-Watergate" audio tape emerged earlier in the day, released in The Washington Post report that covers the conversation between Trump and Georgia State Secretary Brad Raffensperger, accompanied by his lawyer, Ryan Germany. According to the recording, Trump bombarded the two with his election fraud claims, and urged them to "recalculate" the vote tally while accusing the two of knowing about the alleged voter irregularities and refusing to report the purported claims.

"All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," Trump said, according to the audiotape posted by WaPo. "There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you've recalculated."

Raffensperger, however, stood his ground, insisting that the president's data is wrong.

"Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong," Raffensperger said, according to the recording.

Germany, who also took part in the conversation, assured Trump that, contrary to the president's claims, the voting systems company Dominion had "not moved any machinery out of Fulton County," nor had it "replaced the inner parts of the machines." Raffensperger then dismissed some of Trump's claims, refuting allegations that some votes were scanned three times.

Trump, however, insisted that the election results be re-examined, appearing to remain convinced that he had won the Georgia vote "by a lot."