By
Donald Trump’s interactions with Russia’s Vladimir Putin have long been scandalous, but the story took an unexpected turn last week thanks to fresh allegations raised in Bob Woodward’s new book.
To summarize, Woodward’s book alleges that the former Republican president, while in office, secretly sent Covid-19 testing equipment to Putin at the height of the pandemic, even as people in his own country struggled to gain access to such resources. The book, citing a source close to Trump, also claims that the former president and the Russian leader have had direct conversations “as many as seven times” since he left the White House.
The GOP candidate denied the allegations, but not in a detailed way. A statement from a Trump spokesperson simply said that the claims in the book are not true, before lobbing a series of odd and personal attacks at the author. For its part, the Kremlin said Trump sent covid tests but denied Woodward’s reporting on the phone calls. (Of course, the Kremlin is notorious for spreading disinformation, so it’s hard to give much weight to its statements on the matter.)
That was last week. This week, Trump’s line was noticeably different. NBC News reported:
At an event at the Economic Club of Chicago with Bloomberg News, Trump said he wouldn’t comment on whether or not he called Putin multiple times after he left office. “Well, I don’t comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing,” he said. “If I’m friendly with people. If I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing in terms of a country.”
To be sure, that wasn’t an explicit confirmation, but given the comments, the qualifiers and the tone in which he made the comments, it’s hardly a stretch to think the allegations raised in Woodward’s book are credible.
And that, of course, raises a series of related questions. If Trump and Putin have engaged in a series of secret chats — conversations the Republican now believes would be “smart” — how many interactions have the two had? Did Trump offer briefings to U.S. intelligence agencies and the State Department after the conversations?
Did the two talk about U.S. policy toward Ukraine? Did Trump make any promises or extend any guarantees to his benefactor in Moscow? Did the former president say or do anything during the discussions that directly or indirectly undermined his own country’s foreign policy agenda?
Did Trump violate the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from communicating with foreign leaders “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States”?
Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, participated in a wide-ranging live radio town hall syndicated radio host Charlamagne Tha God, and the discussion turned to the allegations raised in Woodward’s book.
As NBC News reported, the Democratic nominee said Trump is someone who “admire[s] dictators” and, during the height of the pandemic, sent “covid tests that nobody could get to the president of Russia for his personal use, when Black people were dying every day by the hundreds.”
“The number of people who lost their grandparents and parents, remember what that was like?” she continued. “People were scrambling for the resources and needed tests, and Donald Trump secretly sent covid tests to the president of Russia.”
This controversy is far from over.