Bob Woodward: There Sure Are Some Similarities Between Benghazi & Watergate

The scandals involving the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative groups, the DOJ snooping on the Associated Press’ phone records, and White House's response to the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi have prompted some in the press to draw comparisons between the Obama and Nixon administrations.

Commenting on the IRS scandal, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward said Friday during an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe: "It's a big mess."

"I know there have been these comparisons to Watergate. I would say not yet," he added, "you've got to investigate all of these things."

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough later said that the only really scandalous issue for President Obama is the one involving the IRS. The other two scandals (i.e. Benghazi and the DOJ), he added, are a little less serious.

Woodward disagreed with Scarborough’s characterization the Benghazi issue. That, the noted journalist explained, could turn out to be very serious indeed.

"If you read through all these emails, you see that everyone in the government is saying, 'Oh, let's not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let's not tell the public that there were warnings,'" he said.

"And I have to go back 40 years to Watergate when Nixon put out his edited transcripts to the conversations, and he personally went through them and said, 'Oh, let's not tell this, let's not show this.' I would not dismiss Benghazi. It's a very serious issue," he added.

Watch the discussion here:

--

Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

Featured image Getty Images.