Getty Bob Woodward says he didn't see evidence of collusion with Russia.
Bob Woodward says that, despite looking hard for it during research for his new book, he did not find evidence of collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia. However, he also said that finding the answers to that question might require a trip to Moscow that he thinks is too dangerous to take.
Woodward’s book, Fear, is, in many ways, unflattering to the president, painting the inner-workings of the White House as chaotic because of an impetuous president. However, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Woodward, the legendary Washington Post reporter, said he came up with a big zero when it came to collusion.
As every one knows, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and his team are looking for just that. The president has repeatedly decried those efforts. On September 16, 2018, Trump tweeted, “The illegal Mueller Witch Hunt continues in search of a crime. There was never Collusion with Russia, except by the Clinton campaign, so the 17 Angry Democrats are looking at anything they can find. Very unfair and BAD for the country. ALSO, not allowed under the LAW!” The tweet came shortly after news that Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had entered a plea agreement into charges he was facing into separate financial issues.
What specifically did Bob Woodward say about collusion? Here’s what you need to know:
Woodward Says He Looked ‘Hard’ for Collusion But Didn’t Find Anything
You can watch Woodward’s comments on video above. In the interview with Hewitt, Woodward was asked if he found evidence of espionage or collusion during the roughly two years he spent working on his book. Specifically, Hewitt asks him, “So let’s set aside the Comey firing, which as a Constitutional law professor, no one will ever persuade me can be obstruction. And Rod Rosenstein has laid out reasons why even if those weren’t the president’s reasons. Set aside the Comey firing. Did you, Bob Woodward, hear anything in your research in your interviews that sounded like espionage or collusion?”
Woodward responded: “I did not, and of course, I looked for it, looked for it hard. And so you know, there we are. We’re going to see what Mueller has, and Dowd may be right. He has something that Dowd and the president don’t know about, a secret witness or somebody who has changed their testimony. As you know, that often happens, and that can break open or turn a case.”
“But you’ve seen no collusion?” said Hewitt, to which Woodward responded, “I have not.” Hewitt returned to the point at another place in the interview, asking Woodward, “Very last question, Bob Woodward, I just want to confirm, at the end of two years of writing this book, this intensive effort, you saw no effort, you, personally, had no evidence of collusion or espionage by the president presented to you?”
“That is correct,” Woodward said.
Woodward Says the Answers to Collusion May Rest in Moscow
GettyBob Woodward
Woodward has also said, though, that he believes the answers to the collusion question can only be found in Moscow, Russia – and he indicated he doesn’t plan to go there.
In an interview with New York Magazine, Woodward brought up the Hewitt interview, and he expanded on his feelings. “And he (Hewitt) said that, oh, it shows no collusion with Russia. Which is true. And I said that I did not find any, but in the end of the book when Dowd is reflecting on the situation, he says, or he concludes, that he and Trump got suckered by Mueller,” said Woodward.
“Turning over all these witness interviews, corroborating documents and so forth, he concludes that Mueller may have something. I don’t know that, but I believe very strongly that the answer to the Russian collusion story is in Russia. Moscow. If somebody who is really going to get to the bottom of the root Russian collusion issue, the answer is in Moscow. If I were to go there, I don’t think I would ever come back.”
Woodward said that, due to his age and family and how dangerous he thinks the undertaking would be, he doesn’t plan to go to Russia to investigate.