In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Friday, Bob Woodward said that in his two years of investigating for his new book, 'Fear,' he found no evidence of collusion or espionage between Trump and Russia. Woodward said he looked for it "hard" and yet turned up nothing.
"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?" Hugh Hewitt asked Woodward.
"I did not, and of course, I looked for it, looked for it hard," Woodward answered. "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."
"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?" Hugh Hewitt asked Woodward.
"I did not, and of course, I looked for it, looked for it hard," Woodward answered. "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?" Hewitt asked again to confirm.
"I have not," Woodward affirmed.
Hewitt would once again ask Woodward about collusion at the conclusion of the interview.
"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?" Hewitt asked.
"That is correct," Woodward said.
The full exchange:
HUGH HEWITT, HOST: Yeah, but I just think people who have been critical of you in the public, all they have to do is say hey, release my tapes, Bob, and we’ll find out whether Gary Cohn said what he said, and John Dowd said what he said, and Rob Porter said what they said. Now let’s get to the substance. I believe that if the president had actually read this book, and their team had read this book, they would not have attacked the book. They would have spun it differently, because there’s a lot complimentary in this book, the most important of which is John Dowd firmly believes, the president’s former lawyer, that the special counsel, Bob Mueller, has nothing. There’s no collusion, there’s nothing. It’s all a play to get an 18 USC 1001 perjury trap, and that POTUS should never sit down. Is that a fair assessment of what John Dowd believes?
BOB WOODWARD, 'FEAR' AUTHOR: Oh, well, yeah, until we end. And finally, it, the point where Dowd resigns because he is convinced the president should not testify, Dowd concludes that Mueller had played him for a sucker, got all of the cooperation of 37 witnesses, a million pages-plus of campaign documents, 20,000 pages of White House documents. So in the end, as he says to the president, he said you were right. We can’t trust Mueller.
HH: And I tell you, Bob Woodward, I read this book as a lawyer. I’m not a defense lawyer, although I was at Justice. Dowd got played badly. Do you agree?
BW: Well, but he is the one who decided on the strategy – total cooperation. We’re going to let you, we’re opening the door completely. And some of the most sensitive material was given to Mueller. He was delighted to have it. It is quite true that Dowd concluded from his own work, remember, he spent eight months on this intensely, time with Mueller, time with the White House people, time with Trump. And he didn’t see anything there until the end.
HH: 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?
BW: 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.
HH: But you’ve seen no collusion?
BW: I have not.
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