'Leverage': Ex-FBI agent reveals what 'no one is talking about' regarding Trump-Putin calls
In journalist Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, former President Donald Trump is said to have had as many as seven phone calls with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin after he left office in 2021. But one former FBI agent is warning that there's an additional cause for concern that hasn't yet been explored.
NJ.com reported Wednesday that Asha Rangappa — an attorney who spent four years as an FBI agent — thinks Putin may have recordings of his conversations with the former president. Rangappa tweeted that it's likely the Russian leader is hedging his bets on how the 2024 election turns out by holding onto tapes of his calls with Trump.
"The thing no one is talking about with regard to Trump's Pooty calls over the last several years is that not only do we not know what they talked about, it's almost certain that Russia has recordings of them," she wrote. "Which means they have leverage. (I know, what's new, but still.)"
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According to Woodward, Trump ordered his aides out of the room before his calls with Putin, so the details of their conversations remain unknown. But the calls took place during the period in which the former president stored numerous boxes containing sensitive classified government documents at Mar-a-Lago, prior to Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's 2022 raid.
Given the time frame of the calls, it's not out of the realm of possibility for Trump — who has repeatedly heaped praise on Putin — to have shared the details of some of those documents with one of America's chief adversaries. ABC News reported last year that some of those documents pertained to "nuclear programs."
Trump conducting calls with foreign leaders as a private citizen without the prior consent of President Joe Biden's administration is, on its face, a clear violation of the Logan Act of 1999. That law deems it a felony punishable by up to three years in prison for any private U.S. citizen to engage in diplomacy without authorization from the federal government.
The Logan Act has rarely been enforced, though Trump once suggested that former Secretary of State John Kerry should be prosecuted under the statute for talking to Iran's government about its nuclear program in 2019. There have only been two individuals indicted under the Logan Act, though CNN reported that both of those prosecutions yielded no convictions.
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Even though Putin endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, that was viewed more as a "troll" stunt, according to CNN. The former president has signaled to Russia that it could "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO allies who don't pay an appropriate percentage of their budget to support the alliance. He also refused to say outright that he supported Ukraine in its war against Russia during his September debate with Harris. The vice president, in the meantime, has steadfastly supported Ukraine and promised to help Zelensky continue defending Ukraine with U.S. support if she wins the November election.
Should Trump win a second term, he has said he would help broker an end to the war by forcing Ukraine to the table and having Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agree to cede certain land to Russia in order to end hostilities. This could include Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and even some of Ukraine's Donbas region, which Putin has recognized as Russian territory.
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