Being involved with a presidential administration that dealt with impeachment, or the impending possibility of impeachment, gives one instant credibility when assessing the current status of the Mueller investigation. However, merely loathing Donald Trump doesn’t mean that impeachment is on the horizon, no matter how much John Dean wants it.

Dean, who was President Nixon’s former White House counsel, has made no secret of how much he disdains President Trump. But is Trump really worse than Nixon?

Trump’s is making the long nightmare of Nixon’s Watergate seem like a brief idyllic daydream. History will treat Nixon’s moral failures as relatively less troubling than Trump’s sustained and growing decadence, deviousness and self-delusive behavior. Nixon=corrupt; Trump=evil.

— John Dean (@JohnWDean) November 4, 2018

The former White House counsel became a key prosecution witness during the Watergate scandal after pleading guilty to one count of obstruction of justice.

Dean has criticized Trump before, but his comments have largely focused on the special counsel investigation and possible legal troubles plaguing the Trump administration.

In August, Dean tweeted that then-White House counsel Don McGahn was “doing right!” by cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation.

He followed that up by hitting Trump directly, saying that he doubts the president had “ANY IDEA what McGahn has told Mueller.”

Dean also told Trump: “I still have trouble using the title Mr. President for someone installed by Putin.”

Really, John Dean? “Installed by Putin”? The Mueller investigation has been ongoing for more than a year (Mueller was formally appointed in May 2017) and so far, all we have are Paul Manafort’s money laundering, George Papadopoulos pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, and Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels. Yes, Russian agents have been charged, but none have been directly tied to the Trump campaign. At this point, barring new evidence, the allegation that “Putin put Trump in the White House” has turned into nothing more than wishful thinking by Trump detractors who still can’t believe that Hillary Clinton lost.

I think that we can safely say that John Dean has a serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, who has zero inside information about Mueller’s investigation, but throws “Watergate” around as if it gives him instant credibility. Sorry, Dean, you’re not special just because Donald Trump called you names. Get in line behind pretty much everyone else on Twitter.

And on the flip side, we have Clinton independent counsel Ken Starr, who says… not so fast, John Dean.

John Catsimatidis in an interview airing Sunday on AM 970 in New York asked Starr, who led the investigation into former President Clinton’s sexual misconduct with Monica Lewinsky, if Trump had committed any “impeachable offenses.”

“Not even close,” Starr replied. “I know of no evidence … that would suggest that [Trump] has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“You can hate the way he tweets … you can disagree with his policies … but be very careful before you move the country toward impeachment,” he added. “It’s inherently divisive.”

Starr has increasingly appeared on cable news shows over the past year to discuss special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The former independent counsel added that there was not a consensus over impeaching Clinton.

“Essentially, you need a consensus among ‘we the people’ [for impeachment],” he said. “We the American people need to agree this president should go. We had that with Richard Nixon. We did not have it with Bill Clinton.”

“We certainly don’t have it with Donald Trump,” he said. “We have a nation divided, but a nation divided does not mean let’s get rid of the president.”

Starr at another point in the interview on the Catsimatidis radio show reiterated that he trusts Mueller but feels wary of those around him.

“I see no indication of Bob Mueller being at cross purposes with anything at the Justice Department,” Starr said. “What we do know is that there were some really bad apples … at the FBI. I’m really disappointed.”

“That never happened in my experience with the FBI,” he added.

Starr, in his recent memoir, was effusive with his praise for the professionalism of the FBI. It’s undeniable that the FBI has credibility issues when it comes to the likes or Peter Strzok and company. But Starr is correct that simply loathing the president does not rise to the level of impeachment. Trump’s tweets definitely annoy me and make me wish that someone would put him on a social media time-out. But given the lack of evidence tying the campaign to Russian involvement, those who are hoping for impeachment because Donald Trump has questionable moral character are simply dreaming.

Sorry, John Dean. Watergate is long over, and calling your political opponent “evil” only means that the country will remain divided. Your dream of removing the president from office will not unify the nation in the least.

Featured image: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images