Journalist Bob Woodward said in an interview with podcaster Tim Miller on October 17 that Dan Coats, Donald Trump‘s former director of national intelligence, suspects Russian President Vladimir Putin is blackmailing the Republican nominee
On Miller’s The Bulwark Podcast, Woodward discussed how he spoke with Coats while writing his latest book, War, about Trump’s relationship with Putin during his presidency and after.
Discussing the pair’s relationship, which Coats reportedly called an “enigma,” Woodward said, “Coats who, for two and a half years was Trump’s director of national intelligence, all the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, sees this. They don’t have all of the information, but he sees it.”
He continued, “This is so strange, it is so subservient on Trump’s part. He actually asks when I discussed this with Coats several months ago, he said ‘is this blackmail?’ In other words, is Trump being blackmailed?”