‘Very Senior’ White House Official Told Bob Woodward: ‘You Will Regret Doing This’

By Chris Ariens 

Bob Woodward has been covering the White House longer than some White House staffers have been alive. But today on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,” the veteran Washington Post reporter says he was threatened by “a very senior person” at the White House over some of his reporting about the sequester.

Woodward told Blitzer, “It was said very clearly, you will regret doing this.” “Who sent that e-mail to you?” asked Blitzer.

Woodward: Well, I’m not going to say.

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Blitzer:  Was it a senior person at the White House?

Woodward: A very senior person.  And just as a matter — I mean, it makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, you’re going to regret doing something that you believe in. And even though we don’t look at it that way, you do look at it that way.  And I think if Barack Obama knew that was part of the communication’s strategy — let’s hope it’s not a strategy, but it’s a tactic that somebody’s employed, and said, look, we don’t go around trying to say to reporters, if you, in an honest way, present something we don’t like, that, you know, you’re going to regret this.  And just — it’s Mickey Mouse.

Watch after the jump…

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