Veteran investigative journalist Carl Bernstein equated CNN's reporting on President Trump's knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting between members of his inner circle and a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign to his Washington Post reporting during the Watergate era.

During a segment on CNN, where he is a political commentator, Bernstein was prompted to discuss how he and CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto got their story this week on how Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen claims to be ready to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump signed off on his son Donald Trump Jr. and campaign officials' meeting with Russians in hopes of obtaining dirt on Hillary Clinton.

That would conflict with Trump's claims he knew nothing about the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

"Well, I talked to sources," Bernstein said on "Reliable Sources" on Sunday. "And as did Jim Sciutto. It became very apparent the former attorney to the president of the United States was going around and telling people that the famous Trump Tower meeting, which indeed was convened for the purpose of collusion. Which is to say it was convened by Don Jr. to accept information from the Russians about dirt on Hillary Clinton that, indeed, Cohen was saying that Donald Trump, candidate for president of the United States at the time, had authorized the go-ahead for that meeting to take place with his son."



.@carlbernstein reveals how he and @jimsciutto reported their big scoop this week, on Michael Cohen claiming that then-candidate Donald Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower https://t.co/kf4zX8xmHL — Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) July 29, 2018



He went on to explain how it is the duty of journalists to determine what is newsworthy.

[More: Trump's fight against 'unpatriotic' media intensifies]

"I said this is news. As did CNN. So like in Watergate, you have a very serious news organization, CNN — in Watergate, the Washington Post — making judgments about what is news. And that's really the most important thing that we do, when we go out and do our reporting and then decide what is news and what is the best obtainable version of the truth," he said.

Bernstein, best known for his investigative reporting for the Washington Post that shed light on the Watergate scandal leading to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974, said that the latest revelations about the Trump Tower meeting is the "best evidence" yet of there being a "demonstrable" cover-up, which he said dates back to reports last summer that Trump dictated his son's initial misleading statement about the meeting when it was first brought to the public's attention.

Trump regularly denounces CNN as being "fake news."