The former Assistant Minority Counsel to the Watergate committee, Michael Madigan, has described comparisons between the Watergate scandal and the firing of FBI Director James Comey’s as “bordering on the absurd.”

Since Trump’s decision to fire Comey last week, a number of politicians and left-wing commentators have compared it to the 1972 Watergate scandal that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation.

Earlier this week, former Comey associates leaked a memo asserting that Trump asked him not to investigate his former national security adviser Mike Flynn over his meeting with the Russian ambassador.

However, Michael Madigan, currently the Democratic speaker for the Illinois House of Representatives, dismissed the claims, pointing to the fact that numerous Democrats had previously called for Comey’s dismissal. In a statement, he said:

Having served as Assistant Minority Counsel to the late Senators Howard Baker and Fred Thompson, it borders on the absurd to hear the comparisons from a gaggle of politicians and pundits between Watergate and the firing of the FBI Director by President Trump. Leaving aside that numerous Democrats have themselves ‘demanded’ the firing of Comey and that Comey himself notes that the FBI Director can be fired for ‘no reason’ at all, the comparisons are not only blatant partisan nonsense, they diminish the historic process which lead to President’s Nixon’s resignation in the summer of 1974. Watergate involved a clear crime for which those involved were indicted, tried in a jury trial or pleaded guilty to clear criminal actions. Having missed the mark with such comparisons, this politically driven gaggle has now moved on to argue that our President’s suggestion (if there was one) that the FBI should have its priorities in stopping the damaging leaks around classified information and not chasing down a former employee is equally weak and frankly an insult to both Democrats and Republicans who served this country so well at a critical time under the impartial guidance of Senators Ervin and Baker.

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