Twitter users were stunned by reports late Monday that former national security adviser John Bolton was so concerned about attempts to pressure Ukraine for dirt on the president’s political rivals that he ordered an aide to contact White House attorneys.
Several news agencies reported that Fiona Hill, formerly the top Russia adviser in the administration of President Donald Trump, gave lawmakers the scoop on the machinations inside the White House.
The New York Times said she testified on a “tense exchange” between Bolton and Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who was working with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine. Bolton told her to tell an attorney for the National Security Council about the effort, which he said also involved acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney
“I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Bolton told Hill to report to the White House lawyers, the newspaper reported.
Hill quoted Bolton as calling Giuliani “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up,” the Times and Washington Post both reported.
The news found Trump critics in the unfamiliar territory of praising, at least briefly, the hawkish arch-conservative veteran of multiple Republican administrations:
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