John Dean:President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss. [Nixon]

John Dean Blasts Warrantless Eavesdropping - Yahoo! News: "y LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Mar 31, 11:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON - John W. Dean, Richard Nixon's White House lawyer, told senators Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss.

Bush, Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee, should be censured and possibly impeached.

"Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented," Dean said. "Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it."
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Feingold summoned Dean to the hearing in part because the former White House counsel made his suspicions about the Bush administration clear long before the wiretapping program became public.

In his 2004 book, "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush," Dean wrote that the former Texas governor began to evoke Nixonian memories with his strategies against Republican John McCain's primary challenge in South Carolina in 2000.

After The New York Times revealed the NSA program in December, Dean wrote that "Bush may have outdone Nixon" and may be worthy of impeachment.

"Nixon's illegal surveillance was limited; Bush's, it is developing, may be extraordinarily broad in scope," Dean wrote in a column for FindLaw.com in December.

Dean served four months in prison for his role in Watergate, a political scandal that involved illegal wiretapping, burglary and abuse of power aimed at Nixon enemies. Administration officials were implicated in the ensuing cover-up.

Nixon resigned Aug. 9, 1974, less than two weeks after the
House Judiciary Committee began approving three articles of impeachment against him, charging obstruction of justice as well as abuse of power and withholding evidence.

Dean said Friday that the issue is one of checks and balances, adding Congress should pass some measure serving a warning to Bush if it can't stomach a censure resolution.

"The president needs to be reminded that separation of powers does not mean an isolation of powers," he said.