In addition to its reign as the newspaper of our nation’s capital, The Washington Post has long enjoyed a sterling reputation for breaking government scandals and exposing corrupt politicians. There would have been no Watergate if not for the Post’s Woodward and Bernstein and their anonymous source, “Deep Throat.” The paper has been awarded 47 Pulitzer Prizes.

But Watergate was more than 40 years ago, and it’s not the template for what happened this week, when the Post reported that President Donald Trump disclosed state secrets to Russian officials.

For the sake of full disclosure, the story should not be reported without identifying the deep personal animosity between Trump and the owner of the Washington Post — Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com — and how Bezos’ ownership might influence the Post’s coverage of the president.

Last week, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, unnamed officials told the Post, that Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

Trump’s blunder amounted to a breach of protocol. He passed on information provided by an ally, shared on condition that the information — and its source — be kept secret.

The threat is that Russian analysts might figure out the source of the intelligence and try to eliminate it, possibly by executing secret agents.

Trump’s disclosure was not a criminal offense. It was not an impeachable offense. It merits criticism but not censure. It has potentially serious consequences. Indeed, all presidential words and actions have potentially serious consequences. So do leaks by ranking White House officials, by the way.

It was a year ago, when Trump was struggling to win the Republican presidential nomination, that Trump slammed Bezos and the Post during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“Every hour we’re getting calls from reporters from The Washington Post asking ridiculous questions,” Trump said, according to a transcript. “And I will tell you, this is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos ... Amazon is getting away with murder, taxwise. He’s using The Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don’t tax Amazon like they should be taxed.”

Trump said Bezos feared how a Trump presidency might affect Amazon’s bottom line.

“He thinks I’ll go after him for antitrust. Because he’s got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they (the Post) are doing,” Trump said. “He’s using The Washington Post ... for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust.”

Bezos’ net worth is more than $80 billion. He bought the Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash.

Trump is, to put it lightly, brash, opinionated and unpredictable, an egocentric, mercurial billionaire. So is the owner of his hometown newspaper.