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WASHINGTON — Legendary journalist Bob Woodward ran into stiff push-back on his claim that the White House had threatened him over an explosive article he penned about the looming budget sequester.
Woodward, the famed Watergate reporter who has blasted the “madness” of President Obama’s delays on military deployment, said the intimidation came from a senior White House official.
The White House scrambled yesterday to play down Woodward’s claim, insisting that the adviser, Gene Sperling, “was incredibly respectful” in an e-mail exchange.
“I think you cannot read those e-mails and come away with the impression that Gene was threatening anybody,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said of Sperling, a senior economic adviser.
Woodward got the perceived threat after he accused the Obama administration of “moving the goal posts” in the sequester fight.
“It was said very clearly, ‘You will regret doing this,’ ” Woodward told CNN Wednesday, just hours after he accused Obama of exhibiting “a kind of madness I haven’t seen in a long time” for the decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Mideast because of budget cuts.
In an interview with Politico, Woodward said he thought Sperling was trying to intimidate him.
“I’ve tangled with lots of these people. But suppose there’s a young reporter who’s only had a couple of years’ — or 10 years’ — experience and the White House is sending him an e-mail saying, ‘You’re going to regret this.’ You know, tremble, tremble. I don’t think it’s the way to operate.”
The e-mails leaked to Politico yesterday were also filled with apologies by Sperling.
“I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying that [President Obama] asking for revenues is moving the goal postS,” Sperling’s e-mail said. “I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim.”
Woodward later told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Sperling was sending a clear message.
“You know that goes into the coded ‘You better watch out,’ ” Woodward said.
The clash brought out new complaints of White House bullying.
Lanny Davis said that after one of his columns for the Washington Times ran, his boss got call from a senior White House official, saying, “If he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials.”