Bolton Objected to Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Calling Giuliani 'a Hand Grenade', NYT.
'The effort to pressure Ukraine for political help provoked a heated confrontation inside the White House last summer that so alarmed John R. Bolton, then the national security adviser, that he told an aide to alert White House lawyers, House investigators were told on Monday.
Mr. Bolton got into a sharp exchange on July 10 with Gordon D. Sondland, the Trump donor turned ambassador to the European Union, who was working with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the presidents personal lawyer, to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to testimony provided to the investigators.
Mr. Bolton instructed Fiona Hill, the senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs, to notify the chief lawyer for the National Security Council that Mr. Giuliani was working with Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, on a rogue operation with legal implications, Ms. Hill told the investigators, according to two people familiar with her closed-door testimony.
I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up, Mr. Bolton, a Yale-trained lawyer, told Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers, according to the testimony.
It was not the first time Mr. Bolton expressed grave concerns to Ms. Hill about Mr. Giuliani. Giulianis a hand grenade whos going to blow everybody up, Ms. Hill quoted Mr. Bolton saying during an earlier conversation.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/us/politics/who-is-fiona-hill.html?
Beakybird
(3,329 posts)JoeOtterbein
(7,697 posts)Thanks for the quick scoop elleng!
Heard NYT had picked up story, so 'ran' over and caught it.
Eugene
(61,592 posts)safeinOhio
(32,524 posts)might be the final nail?
My head is spinning.
elleng
(130,126 posts)he has a brain, has used it in the past to our detriment, but now may use it in our interest.
dalton99a
(81,065 posts)yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)"I can't believe this asshole is President!"
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Bolton's a secular hawk, but his worldview and especially his commitment to Israel, have some big things in common with the religious right's. His commitment is to America's military dominance, and it's impossible to separate our power interests in the ME from religion. Or our interests there from Ukraine, which is just one of the military holdings on the way to the Mediterranean/ME that Putin's after.
The Republicans'/religious right's intense zionism and concerns for who holds the holy lands are all about Christian ascendancy. And Trump has just put the very existence of Christianity in the ME in danger, Kurdish Christians and other Christian groups in Syria, Turkey, Iraq especially.
It may be an overstatement, or not , but someone just said Trump's bumbling chaos-creation is changing the entire balance of power in the ME as we watch. Putin's visiting Sawdi Arabia. Turkey, a member of NATO, is attacking U.S. forces. And so on. It's all connected.