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Shop NowDonald Trump did not have secret conversations with Vladimir Putin. Bob Woodward has been coasting along in his career ever since blowing the cover off Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal. Trying to finance his golf habit in retirement, the washed up Washington Post reporter just put a book out. Half of Washington is calling him a liar over what he has to say but the quotes are guaranteed to sell copies.
Trump denies it
The Trump campaign went on the offensive to reject “accounts in journalist Bob Woodward’s new book that the Republican presidential nominee has held multiple phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office in January 2021.”
The author used all the right weasel words to evade liability for his statements but the book remains a work of fiction.
Another snippet of misinformation Woodward included was an allegation that “Trump agreed to secretly send Putin COVID-19 testing equipment.” It never happened. According to campaign communications director Steven Cheung, “none of these made up stories by Bob Woodward are true.”
In the past, the future president gave Woodward some access while the reporter gathered material for previous books. Not this time.
Unfortunately, Cheung declares, Woodward “suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
That’s probably because of “Trump’s lawsuit against Woodward, in which the former president is seeking $50 million from the veteran journalist over his publication of tapes of interviews.”
Case not dismissed
While getting ready to write his book “Rage,” Woodward conducted interviews with Trump “while he was in office between December 2019 and August 2020.” He didn’t have the rights to release any of the interview tapes.
“Woodward and his publisher filed to get the case dismissed in September 2023.” The judge didn’t say yes and the case is pending.
With nothing to lose, Woodward carefully wrote that unidentified “Trump aides” told him “there have been as many as seven phone calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left the White House in 2021.”
There may have been a thousand but there weren’t. The actual number is zero.
To back up his statement “Woodward also cited Trump aide Jason Miller as not being aware of any calls between Trump and Putin.” That proves they must have happened. For good measure, he added “Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, did not conclusively rule out contacts between the Russian leader and the former president.”
If she had a single shred of evidence to indicate he really did have even one secret conversation, Woodward would have quoted it and milked it for all it was worth. There was nothing there but he’s using it against Trump now as a way to get even.
