Carl Bernstein said he sees parallels between the backlash against his reporting on the Watergate scandal and President Trump’s efforts to “inhibit” investigators and journalists from looking into whether the Russian government meddled in the presidential election.
During a panel on CNN on Tuesday, Bernstein characterized this week’s controversy surrounding former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice’s reported attempts to uncover the identities of Trump officials caught on tape incidentally during intelligence surveillance as “a total red herring.” He also said Trump’s fight against leaks and “fake news” are nothing but distractions.
“Instead of trying to cooperate with these investigations and let the people of the United States know what, if anything, happened involving him and those around him, the president of the United States and his associates are trying to inhibit every bit of investigation and trying to make Susan Rice or the press or quote ‘leaks’ the issue instead of the conduct of the president and the people around him. It’s absurd.”
Bernstein, whose investigative reporting in the 1970s with Bob Woodward led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, said the current situation reminds him of the Watergate scandal.
“I hate to bring up the example of Watergate. I really do,” he said. “But it’s as if the example of Watergate is that the press was responsible for what happened in Watergate, not the president of the United States. ”
Referring to his investigation’s detractors, Bernstein said “our conduct at the Washington post was the real issue and Deep Throat and leaks.”
Host Anderson Cooper asked if Nixon tried to do that at the time.
“Of course he did,” he replied. “The other thing is, we keep hearing the word ‘leaks.'” He said for any type of story, including the Russia story, reporters are “working hard as hell to try to find out what happened.”
“There is nobody that I know of that is jumping over transoms and bringing reporters tons documents that show what happened with the Russians,” Bernstein said. “This is about reporters trying to extract information under very difficult circumstances from people with little pieces of information. It’s called reporting. Not leaking.”
