GOP primary challenger Weld compares Trump to Nixon for ‘inappropriately’ using executive privilege

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (R), who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, on Wednesday compared President Trump to former President Nixon after Trump declared executive privilege over special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report. 

“Donald Trump seems determined to model his response to the Mueller investigation on Richard Nixon’s response to Watergate,” Weld said in a statement. 

{mosads}“Like Nixon, he is inappropriately using executive privilege to try and prevent Congress from seeing evidence of his criminal conduct. The courts rejected that during Watergate, and they will reject it again here,” he added.

Weld, who announced last month that he would mount a primary challenge to Trump, also said in his statement that the Republican Party “deserves better.” 

“The Republican Party deserves better than a candidate who makes a mockery of our long-standing support for the rule of law,” he said. “And the American people deserve better than a President who uses the power of his office to protect himself, rather than advance our national interests.”

Trump on Wednesday invoked executive privilege as the House Judiciary Committee prepared to vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress after Barr did not turn over an unredacted version of the Mueller report and its underlying materials despite a committee subpoena. 

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the president’s action, saying in a statement that Trump “has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege.”

Weld has been a frequent critic of Trump, saying that his behavior as outlined in the redacted Mueller report amounts to “criminal conduct and impeachable conduct” in an MSNBC interview. He clarified in the interview that he was not calling for Trump’s impeachment.