Bob Woodward Reveals Top Trump Intelligence Official Thought It ‘Seemed Like’ Putin Was Blackmailing Trump

Legendary journalist Bob Woodward dropped a bombshell during a conversation with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and his old partner  Carl Bernstein about what President-elect Donald Trump might have in store for the country in a second term on Thursday,

“Bob, let me start with you. You’ve interviewed Trump at least 20 times. And I know recently you said that the former president is far worse than Richard Nixon. Obviously, a majority of voters were not concerned. I’m wondering what you thought last night as you watched the results come in. What do you think of where we’re at right now?” Cooper asked Woodward.

“Well, it’s the functioning of democracy. So he’s president-elect. There are lots of things to watch in what will be the new Trump administration. I just want to cite one of them, and that is the relationship Trump has with Putin — the Russian leader. I talked to, a couple of months ago, to Dan Coats, the former director of national intelligence under Trump. And I said, what’s going on in this relationship between Trump and Putin? And Dan Coats said, ‘It’s almost it’s so close. It seems like it might be blackmail,’” Woodward replied, adding:

CIA Director Bill Burns said Putin manipulates, he’s professionally trained to do that. Putin’s got a plan just to be just to do this exactly when Trump and it’s what he did when Trump was in office previously and he’s planning again at playing Trump. So there is much to watch, particularly in that relationship.

“Carl Obviously, the the whatever problems the transition had the first time around for the in the new Trump administration, it seems like they’ve thought those out. They’ve learned from mistakes. And this will be far more maybe, perhaps at least it seems like it may be more efficient in the transition with no– if they have the Senate, they have the House, obviously the Supreme Court. What do you make of what this administration might be like?” Cooper asked Bernstein.

“Well, you’ve correctly pointed out that he has Trump now has institutional memory and knows how to use the levers of the presidency fairly effectively. But the real question is philosophical, moral, constitutional, and legal one, and that is how is he going to use the immense powers of the president of the United States? He is someone whose life has been spent in retribution, seeking grievances to get attention to himself, to get his position favored through these grievances, going after his enemies,” Bernstein replied, adding:

This was a campaign for president that was about enemies. He has threatened that he wants to bring to heal. And in the courtrooms, what he calls the enemies from within, including the press, including members of the military who were his chiefs of staff, etc… The question is, he has this tremendous mandate to do good. He has been elected by this incredible margin. And let’s hope that there are two Donald Trumps, that he will use these enormous powers in a constitutional way.

I don’t have any illusions about what it is he seeks to do in terms of his policies. But there are ways to do it legally. And in his first term, he went the other way. And so I think the hope has to be that somehow maybe in his early days here, he’ll read the Constitution of the United States and use it to help attain his goals.

Watch the clip above via CNN.