Watergate prosecutor: ‘Social media’ changes White House investigation

A former Watergate special prosecutor said on Friday that social media and the internet have dramatically escalated the pace of the law enforcement investigation into possible collusion between President Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.

“The biggest difference is the existence of social media and the internet, so the news is spreading much faster and is available to everyone who reads to understand what’s going on,” attorney Jill Wine-Banks told MSNBC’s Ari Melber.

That such information is being made public at such as a fast pace, she said, has made it increasingly difficult for the Trump administration to keep tabs on what has been revealed.

{mosads}

“Clearly, if you’re representing the Trump people, this is a nightmare because the news is coming so fast that it’s hard to keep up with and it is an accumulation of evidence that could end up being the smoking gun that the June 23 tape was in Watergate,” she said, referring to the recording that linked former President Richard Nixon to a coverup of the Watergate burglary. 

Trump’s White House has been faced with a growing number of controversies in recent weeks, most recently surrounding Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is now a focus of the FBI’s Russia probe due to meetings he had with Russian officials last year.

Trump has repeatedly denied any coordination between his campaign and Moscow, and has dismissed news coverage of the investigation as “fake news.” The White House has largely remained silent on the controversies since Trump left for his first trip abroad last week.