“I think I have enough scars to mention things about Russia that I probably didn’t want to hear, and I can say I agree with” accounts from other former officials that Trump did not want to hear negative information related to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bolton told him. CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday.
Bolton’s comments follow White House denials that Trump was “personally informed” about reports that Russia offered rewards to Taliban fighters for killing US troops in Afghanistan.
CNN also reported Wednesday that Trump’s resistance to intelligence warnings about Russia led his national security team, including those who delivered the President’s Daily Report, to report to him less frequently verbally about Russia-related threats to the US. The U.S., according to several former Trump administration officials who briefed Trump, was on hand for the briefings and who prepared the documents for his intelligence briefings.
Bolton said Thursday that “everyone understood the nature of Russia’s activities, with the possible exception of the president.”
“And so, there was a lot of activity going on as expected, and we just tried to report to the President, we tried to get his reaction,” Bolton continued. “Measures were taken, I think it is important, to deal with Russian threats, but generally when the president complained and complained on the way.”
Intelligence reports referring to the rewards offered by Russia for killing US soldiers were relayed to senior National Security Council officials, including Bolton, who would have ultimately decided whether or not to report to the president, a source familiar with the situation. he told CNN earlier this week.
The source added that they did not know if Bolton had chosen to do so, but they did know that Bolton was aware of the reports. Multiple sources have told CNN that Bolton is a true consumer of intelligence.
When pressed Thursday whether he was willing to say whether or not he told Trump about the Russian rewards, or whether he had heard about the report before The New York Times first reported it, Bolton said he was “not going to talk about classified information. “
Bolton had already questioned whether the briefings with Trump were effective. He wrote in his memoirs published last week, “I didn’t think these briefings were terribly useful, and neither did the intelligence community, as we spent most of the time listening to Trump rather than Trump listening to informants.” .
CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Jim Sciutto, Barbara Starr, Paul LeBlanc, Jamie Gangel, Kevin Liptak, and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.
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