On the campaign trail in early October, a reporter asked Vice Presidential Nominee J.D. Vance about new reporting from Bob Woodward that Donald Trump had private phone calls with Vladimir Putin after leaving office. Vance replied, “I honestly didn’t know that Bob Woodward was still alive until you just asked me that question.”
Vance’s response is indicative of Woodward’s slide into irrelevance in recent years. He’s drifted from the world-famous shoe-leather reporter who famously took down Nixon to someone who seemed all too comfortable in the corridors of power.
This shift is why my new book co-authored with Kent Heckenlively, Twilight of the Shadow Government: How Transparency Will Kill the Deep State, opens with a chapter titled, “The Lies of Bob Woodward.” Let me cut to the chase and tell you what I really believe: Bob Woodward is likely to be the number one disinformation agent of the Deep State. Let’s start with the facts.
We started with Woodward’s own fairy-tale account of his life, enrolling in Yale on an NROTC scholarship and studying history and English literature. Did you know the Ivy Leagues are the prime recruiting grounds for the intelligence agencies, and they love those liberal arts majors?
From Yale, he goes to the Navy for five years, but neglects to inform the public that he was an intelligence briefer for General Alexander Haig, who would go on to become chief of staff in the Nixon White House. In that role, he also briefed Admiral Thomas Moorer,
