LONDON (Sputnik) — The 30-minute film boils down to a series of short interviews with US and Russian political and public figures, including Trump’s biographer Michael D'Antonio, his former political adviser Roger Stone, retired US intelligence officer Malcolm Nance and Russia’s ex-Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.
"Whatever the truth, Trump’s locked in a strange embrace with Vladimir Putin," Sweeney declared. "If the ‘bromance’ ends and President Trump falls out with President Vladimir Putin… we face a prospect of a brand new cold war, colder than ever before."
The film’s author claims he had "confronted" both Trump and Putin in the past. The encounters refer to Sweeney’s interrupted interview with the then US businessman and a question he once asked the Russian leader about his purported involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.
In his documentary, aired ahead of Trump’s inauguration as US president on January 20, the British journalist mused why Trump seemed to admire Putin that much. His conclusion was that the US mogul admired power.
The investigation also raised the question whether Russia had materials with which to blackmail Trump after reports claimed he had been groomed by Russian intelligence for at least five years. The BBC film shows Kasyanov saying he was "almost sure" Trump’s hotel room in Moscow had been bugged.
After analyzing Trump’s cabinet picks, Sweeney concluded it had mixed attitudes toward Russia, with some being critical of Moscow and others being surprisingly close to it, according to the journalist. He also heard an "echo" of Russian politics in Trump’s criticism of CNN as a "fake news" network.
The United States has repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in the US presidential elections, but Moscow has denied all such allegations. Last week, US media circulated a so-called Trump dossier of Russia’s compromising data on the president-elect, although US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper denied the intel memos at its core came from the US Intelligence Community.
