Trump 'Helped Putin Destabilize the U.S.,' Special Counsel Will Find, Watergate Reporter Says
Amid two new reports about President Donald Trump‘s behavior toward Russia and its leader, journalist Carl Bernstein — whose reporting on Watergate helped precipitate the resignation of President Richard Nixon — said Sunday the special counsel investigating Trump will find he “helped Putin destabilize the United States and interfere in the [2016] election.”
Bernstein did not identify his source for this contention, made while appearing on CNN.
“Trump keeps going back to the idea we need better relations with Russia. Could be,” Bernstein said. “He could well be right. But from a point of view of strength and what everybody can see is that he has not acted with Russia from the Unite States having a strength advantage with Russia. Rather he has done what appears to be Putin’s goals: He has helped Putin destabilize the United States and interfere in the election — no matter whether it was purposeful or not, and that is part of what the draft of Mueller’s report, I’m told, is to be about.”
Two days earlier, The New York Times reported that in addition to a criminal investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice when he fired James Comey as FBI director, the bureau also launched a counterintelligence probe in the shadow of Comey’s sudden dismissal.
“Law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests,” according to the Times.
However, according to the paper, some outside experts wondered if this step was not an overreaction by bureau investigators moving too quickly in the wake of Comey being fired.
On Sunday morning, The Washington Post detailed the “extraordinary lengths” the president had gone to so as “to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials.”
Trump as quick to dismiss these reports — on Twitter, in a Sunday interview on Fox News and again at a Monday press conference.
Asked by Fox’s Jeanine Pirro if he had ever “worked for Russia,” the president reacted with disgust, describing the suggestion as baseless. But he did not say “no.”
“I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked,” he said. “I think it’s the most insulting article I’ve ever had written. And if you read the article, you’d see that they found absolutely nothing.”
Speaking with the press on Monday, Trump was more definitive, telling one reporter: “I never worked for Russia. Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it’s a disgrace that you even asked that question because it’s a whole big fat hoax.”
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As to what the Post had found with regards to his interactions with Putin, Trump downplayed any whiff of wrongdoing, telling Pirro: “Anyone could have listened to that meeting. That meeting is open for grabs.” White House officials also reiterated to the Post that some details of the president’s Putin meetings have previously been made public — not kept secret.
Reacting to this flurry of headlines on CNN Sunday, Bernstein said the Times’ reporting of a counterintelligence investigation into Trump was “unprecedented.”
“This is not about the ‘deep state,’ ” Bernstein said, referring to a pejorative label for career bureaucrats in the government whom some conservatives believe are plotting against the president.
“This is about the most serious counterintelligence people we have in the U.S. government saying, ‘Oh my god, the president’s words and actions lead us to conclude that somehow he has become a witting, unwitting or half-witting pawn, certainly in some regards to Vladimir Putin,’ ” Bernstein continued.
According to the Times, the FBI was moved to act after Trump publicly linked his firing of Comey to the investigation of his possible ties to Russia.
“The inquiry carried explosive implications,” the Times reported. “Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”
Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating connections between the Trump campaign and Russian officials as well as allegations of conspiracy between them, took over the FBI’s counterintelligence case, according to the Times.
Its outcome and ultimate findings are unclear, the paper reports. (A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment to PEOPLE.)
The articles in the Post and Times as well as Bernstein’s comments on Mueller’s work underline how little is known about the special counsel’s ongoing investigation, which approaches its third year this summer.
Mueller and his team have been resolutely tight-lipped about their work outside of the court system. And while reports continue to circulate that Mueller must be reaching an endpoint and preparing to announce what he has learned, that is far from certain.
As Times reporter Adam Goldman told the New Yorker in an interview about his story on the counterintelligence probe:
“Even if Mueller’s people … are furiously writing this report, there is still a grand jury going on. That got extended. If, in fact, they uncovered new evidence that led to new charges, this could go on. They could be a week away from closing and then they dig up something. It is difficult to prognosticate. You never know what an investigation could unearth, even in the ninth inning.”
