Book by journalist Bob Woodward | Trump allegedly remained in secret contact with Putin

Donald Trump has reportedly spoken secretly with Vladimir Putin on seven occasions since leaving the White House. All this, while he encouraged Republican elected officials to block American military aid to Ukraine, which is struggling with the Russian invader. This is what journalist Bob Woodward, from Washington Post, in a book which will be published next week.

The work, entitled Warsays that in early 2024, at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the former US president ordered an aide out of his office so he could phone the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. According to the unnamed aide, the two men had spoken perhaps half a dozen times since Mr. Trump was no longer president of the United States.

Mr. Woodward’s book also reports that Mr. Trump – while still in office at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 – secretly sent Mr. Putin an Abbott Point of Care diagnostic device ( testing for COVID-19), rare at the time. The Russian leader, notoriously anxious about catching COVID-19, urged Mr. Trump to keep quiet about the gift because it would have a political cost for the US president.

“I don’t want you to tell anyone, because people will get angry with you, not me,” Vladimir Putin reportedly told him.

These revelations raise new questions about the relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, weeks before an election that could return the former president to the White House.

Bob Woodward, journalist at Washington Post for half a century, is famous for revealing with his colleague Carl Bernstein the Watergate scandal in 1972. He regularly publishes best-selling books containing explosive information based on access to high-level sources.

Source anonyme

In Warthe revelation of repeated contacts between MM. Trump and Putin are attributed to a single unnamed source, an aide to Mr. Trump who offers no details about the exchanges. The only information given in Mr Woodward’s book is that there were “perhaps as many as seven” contacts. At the time of publishing this article on Tuesday, no independent confirmation had corroborated this information.

Mr. Trump’s election team dismissed Mr. Woodward’s book, attacking the author with typically personal insults: “complete garbage […]slow, lethargic, incompetent and generally a boring person with no personality.” She did not address any of the elements reported in the work.

“None of these stories made up by Bob Woodward are true. They are the work of a truly demented and disturbed man who suffers from a debilitating case of anti-Trump derangement disorder,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. He adds that Mr. Trump did not authorize Mr. Woodward to publish his book and recalls that the former president is suing the author for a previous book.

The Kremlin also denied the existence of conversations between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, and denied sending COVID-19 tests. “This is not true,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman, wrote in a text message. “This is a typical bogus story in the context of the election campaign. »

While Mr. Trump’s election team rejects Mr. Woodward’s account outright, the statement does not explicitly state whether the former president has spoken with Mr. Putin since leaving office. A specific question about this from Times remained unanswered. But Mr. Trump’s oft-expressed affinity for the Kremlin master has long confounded even his appointees, sparked investigations and troubled Republican national security experts.

US intelligence concluded that Russia – obeying Mr Putin – intervened in the 2016 election to help Mr Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump rejected that conclusion and indicated that he believed Mr. Putin’s denial. Although special counsel Robert Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy that could be proven in court, he documented an unusual number of contacts between Russia and people in Donald Trump’s entourage during the campaign from 2016.

Admiration for Vladimir Putin

Since leaving office in Washington, Mr. Trump has continued to praise Mr. Putin. He called it a “genius” when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and since then he has refused to say Ukraine should win the war. He criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine, in addition to pressuring congressional Republicans not to approve additional aid. He boasts, if elected, of being able to negotiate the end of the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.

Mr. Trump has not explained how he would go about it, but the agreement described in September by his running mate, Senator JD Vance, closely resembles what Mr. Putin wants. According to Vance, Russia could retain Ukrainian territory conquered in violation of international law and receive a “guarantee of neutrality” from Ukraine, which would not be allowed to join NATO.

Vice President Kamala Harris condemned Mr Trump’s ties to Mr Putin in an interview on the show 60 Minutes, Monday evening. “Right now, we support Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s unprovoked aggression,” she said. “If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He says he can be done with it on day one, but you know what that is? It’s called surrender. »

Mr. Woodward’s book does not reveal what MM. Trump and Putin spoke during the early 2024 call, nor did he offer details on other calls mentioned by the Trump aide. He quotes Jason Miller, one of Mr. Trump’s top campaign advisers, who said he had “not heard that they are [parlaient] ”, and therefore that he was not going to “confirm this”. Mr. Miller added, however, that if they wanted to talk, he was “sure they would know how to contact each other.”

Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence appointed by President Joe Biden, did not respond to Mr. Woodward’s question. “I don’t pretend to be aware of all the contacts with Putin,” she replied. I don’t pretend to be able to speak to what President Trump may or may not have done. »

Former presidents sometimes meet with their foreign counterparts after leaving office. For example, Mr. Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and other statesmen at Mar-a-Lago. But those meetings were made public and Mr. Trump posed for photos with his guests.

It would be highly unusual for a former president to speak privately with a major adversary of the United States like Mr. Putin without informing the current administration, especially at a time when the United States and Russia are in conflict. opposing sides in a war in Europe. Joe Biden has not spoken to Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine.

This article was published in the New York Times.

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