Republican Sen. John McCain said the scandals swirling around President Trump are rising to “Watergate-size and scale.”
“I think we’ve seen this movie before. I think it appears at a point where it’s of Watergate-size and scale,” McCain said at a ceremony Tuesday night in Washington, D.C.
McCain, who received a Freedom Award at the International Republican Institute, was asked what advice he would give Trump to deal with the revelations that are rocking the White House.
“The same thing that you advised Richard Nixon, which he didn’t do … get it all out. … It’s not going to be over until every aspect of it is thoroughly examined and the American people make a judgment. And the longer you delay, the longer it’s going to last,” McCain said.
He criticized the president for revealing highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a White House meeting last week. A meeting requested by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’ve known this guy Lavrov for 30 years, he’s an old KGB apparatchik stooge, and Putin is a murderer and a thug,” McCain said, referring to Russian spy agency. “And to have Lavrov in the Oval Office and be friendly with the guy whose boss … sent aircraft with precision weapons to attack hospitals in Aleppo, I just think it’s unacceptable.”
McCain spoke at the ceremony shortly after the New York Times reported that Trump had asked then-FBI Director James Comey to end the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn during an Oval Office visit in February.
Comey, who was probing Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump campaign officials colluded with the Kremlin, was fired by the president on May 9.
During their White House meeting on Feb. 14, Trump asked Comey to “let this go,” according to notes the former FBI director kept, the New York Times reported.
Flynn was part of that Russia investigation.