Donald Trump is Putin’s ‘source at the top’ in US, ex-CIA chief says --[Reported by Umva mag]

Ex-President Donald Trump has reportedly been cultivated as a ‘source’ by Russian President Vladimir Putin to manipulate the US.

Trump recently touted his ‘very good relationship’ with Putin, and has repeatedly said he kept the dictator at bay and that Russia’s war on Ukraine would never have started if he was still in the White House.

But former CIA head Leon Panetta said Trump’s closeness to Putin ‘worries me’.

‘I think Donald Trump in many ways is naïve about who Putin really is,’ Panetta said on the One Decision podcast he co-hosts.

‘He (Putin) knows how to work a source and he’s got a source that is very near the top in this country, he, himself is going to engage that source.

‘And that really is what the bottom line is, is that Trump has turned into a source for Putin, and somebody who can help him manipulate what he wants to get done.’

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Metro.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung denied to The Telegraph that the former president spoke regularly with Putin.

Panetta, who also was a defense secretary under ex-President Barack Obama, said Trump’s relationship with Putin raised suspicions on his actual loyalties.

‘To have a president basically engaging with an adversary, who knows what deals are made… the mere fact a former president of the United States is having regular conversations with our primary adversary raises real questions about where is his basic loyalty,’ Panetta said.

‘Is it really to the United States of America or is it to Donald Trump?’

The subject of the podcast was Journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, War, which claimed that Trump sent Covid tests to Putin for personal use when there was a shortage of them.

Woodward also reported that Trump has spoken with Putin up to seven times since leaving the White House.

Earlier this week, Trump denied both that he sent Covid tests to the Russian president and that they two spoke after he left office.

‘That’s false,’ Trump told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.

‘He’s a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles.’

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