‘Blair DID hint at MI6 leaks – and Donald was source’
MICHAEL Wolff has scoffed at Tony Blair’s denial that he told Donald Trump MI6 may have leaked details of his team’s contacts with the Russians.
Repeating the allegation made in his book Fire And Fury, Mr Wolff said that the former Prime Minister may have made the claim to ‘curry favour’ with Mr Trump, having once been so close to Bill and Hillary Clinton in the past.
The row dates back to last March, when The Mail on Sunday revealed how Mr Blair had secretly visited the White House in a bid to win a new role as a Middle East adviser to the President. We reported how, weeks after Mr Trump’s inauguration, Mr Blair held talks with the President’s senior adviser Jared Kushner. Mr Kushner is married to the President’s daughter Ivanka.
It was seen as an audacious attempt to rebuild his career as an international statesman. Mr Wolff’s book says that Mr Blair also met Mr Trump himself, as well as his then top aide, Steve Bannon.
The former Prime Minister and ex-envoy to the Middle East told them he believed that British spies could have told the CIA about contacts between Mr Trump’s advisers and the Russians before the presidential election in November 2016.
But Mr Blair angrily denied the alleged MI6 leak last week, stating: ‘This story is a complete fabrication from beginning to end.
‘I’ve never had such conversations in the White House, outside of the White House, with Jared Kushner, with anybody else.’
However, he admitted that he had discussed the Middle East with Mr Kushner at the White House.
Mr Wolff laughed off Mr
Blair’s denial – and told The Mail on Sunday the original source of the information was actually Mr Trump himself.
He said: ‘For some reason Bannon and Kushner jumped into a car and went to meet the Director and Deputy Director of the CIA at its HQ in Langley to discuss what they had just heard from Tony Blair.
‘Trump said, “This is what Tony Blair has said, drive down and find out if it’s true.”’ Mr Blair was ‘trying to curry favour’ with Mr Trump and play down his Clinton links, Mr Wolff claimed.
He added: ‘I was very careful how I cast it. I don’t know if Blair said, “This is what is happening” or “In the past such things happened” or “Have you considered the possibility?”
‘I don’t know the context in which he said it but I am totally confident he said it.
‘I was on the couch in the White House and saw Mr Blair.’