Donald Trump's Former Top Intelligence Official Says It 'Seemed Like' Vladimir Putin Was Blackmailing the President-Elect

Donald Trump's former director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, knows a thing or two about the businessman's suspicious dynamic with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Journalist Bob Woodward, who spoke with Coats, has shed light on what a potential second term for Trump might entail due to his cozy relationship with Putin.

During an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper and his former partner Carl Bernstein, Woodward was asked where he thought the country would go under another Trump White House.

The journalist told Cooper: "There are lots of things to watch in what will be the new Trump administration. I just want to cite one of them, and that is the relationship Trump has with Putin — the Russian leader."

"I talked to, a couple of months ago, to Dan Coats, the former director of national intelligence under Trump. And I said, 'What’s going on in this relationship between Trump and Putin?' And Dan Coats said, ‘It’s almost ... it’s so close. It seems like it might be blackmail,’” he continued. "CIA Director Bill Burns said Putin manipulates. He’s professionally trained to do that. Putin’s got a plan just to do this exactly when Trump was in office previously and he’s planning again at playing Trump."

On Thursday, November 7, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and praised the president-elect’s "courage" during the July assassination attempt.

"I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election as president of the United States of America,” Putin said at an international forum in Sochi.

"His behavior at the moment of an attempt on his life left an impression on me. He turned out to be a brave man," he added. "He manifested himself in the very correct way, bravely as a man."

Putin also commented on Trump's statement about the desire to restore relations with Russia and to help end the Ukrainian crisis. The Russian dictator said it "deserves attention at least."

In Woodward's book War, he claimed Trump and Putin continued to interact after the president left office.

The journalist claimed they had seven conversations since 2021, with the Republican even asking one aide to leave the room so they could speak. The Trump team rejected Woodward's accounts as "made-up stories."

Later in the interview, Cooper asked Bernstein what a second Trump administration would look like now that the Republicans will have control of the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court.

“The real question is a philosophical, moral, constitutional, and legal one, and that is how is he going to use the immense powers of the president of the United States? He is someone whose life has been spent in retribution, seeking grievances to get attention to himself, to get his position favored through these grievances, going after his enemies,” Bernstein replied.

"This was a campaign for president that was about enemies. He has threatened that he wants to bring to heal. And in the courtrooms, what he calls the enemies from within, including the press, including members of the military who were his chiefs of staff," he added. "The question is, he has this tremendous mandate to do good. He has been elected by this incredible margin. And let’s hope that there are two Donald Trumps, that he will use these enormous powers in a constitutional way."

"I don’t have any illusions about what it is he seeks to do in terms of his policies," he concluded. "But there are ways to do it legally."