GOP squirms as Bolton prepares to dish on Trump White House
WASHINGTON—For much of the last 20 years, John Bolton was a conservative poster child, a Republican hawk whose worldview helped shape the GOP establishment's approach to dicey foreign policy questions.
Now, as President Donald Trump's former national security adviser prepares to dish on his days in the White House, some old friends and colleagues are turning on him — and others are nervously wondering what he may be poised to reveal.
Leaked passages from the manuscript of Bolton' s soonto-be published book are roiling Washington, including the revelation that he says Trump told him he was conditioning the release of military aid to Ukraine on whether its government would help investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
Bolton's roughly 17-month tenure in as national security adviser brought him rare access to the inner workings of the West Wing and the Cabinet, particularly on matters of global affairs. He was known to take copious notes on yellow legal pads.
After this week's early leaks about the book, White House aides and allies are privately expressing concern about what more Bolton might reveal that the president and others in his orbit would find embarrassing.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., gave voice t o GOP pi que about
Bolton's revelations in an interview with Fox News. He said Bolton had long argued for expansive executive powers to protect a president's conversations with his advisers but “now he's going to argue that no, no, no, now that I have a book deal for a couple of million bucks, that it's OK for me to say and spill the beans on everything the president's said to me privately.”