Even as Alan Dershowitz was wrapping up a day in which Trump’s legal team operated on the pretense that contents from John Bolton’s upcoming book had not been leaked over the weekend, The New York Times released more material from the manuscript. The primary subject of the new material was not Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine, but some of his connections to other foreign governments, including those of Turkey and China, where Trump appeared to be placing a personal relationship—or personal benefits—above national concerns.
The most interesting point from the just-reported pages might not be so much what as who. Because it was not only John Bolton who expressed concern about Trump’s willingness to nod along with dictators. Also worried by Trump’s actions was the man who has been Trump’s primary enabler: Attorney General William Barr.
While Bolton was fretting that Trump was weakening national security policies toward Turkey and China to maintain his personal relationships with Tayyip Erdoğan and cake-buddy Xi Jinping, Barr had other concerns. The issues with both Turkey and China were the subjects of independent investigations by the FBI and the Department of Justice. But Trump was directly putting his fingers all over the issues involved in those investigations. That appears to include having had conversations with both Erdoğan and Xi in which he may have passed along information on the status of the investigations.
Even before his election, Trump had a fondness for dictators. Since he has occupied the White House, that unbridled power has become the model for how he does business, and for what he looks for in a “peer.” Erdoğan, Xi, Mohammed bin Salman, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, and Rodrigo Duterte come in for almost unlimited praise for their “toughness,” even when that toughness is expressed in mass murder. On the other hand, more democratic leaders of traditional allies—from Canada to European countries—have come in for constant attacks by Trump. Apparently even senior officials in Trump’s White House are less than thrilled with his willingness to embrace dictators and swoon over those whose policies are far from democratic ideals. Trump’s actions have also interfered in investigations targeting financial institutions involved in money laundering and evading international sanctions.
As The Washington Post reports, each release of information from Bolton’s book is turning up the heat in D.C. While this certainly isn’t the first book in which a former member of the Trump White House details the deep dysfunction and struggle to patch over Trump’s latest disasters, Bolton’s long history within the Republican Party is giving this manuscript extra impact. That impact is multiplied a thousandfold by the timing of the leak during Trump’s impeachment.
According to the Post, the connection between Ukraine funds and the desired investigation into a political rival isn’t a quick hit in the manuscript, but part of over a dozen pages devoted to Bolton’s involvement in the Ukraine scheme. The Post also notes a lot of friction that existed between Trump’s staff of personally loyal toadies and Bolton as a representative of old-school Republican conservatives. Bolton was looked on from the beginning not as an agent of the deep state, but as an agent of the traditional right—and there was no love lost between Bolton and Trump, or Bolton and Trump’s closest supporters.
What both the manuscript and White House reports indicate is that Bolton “was regularly appalled” by Trump’s actions and statements. So appalled that he was willing to tell anyone—after he left the administration and signed a seven-figure contract.