Trump behaviour concerning, says Bolton book

WASHINGTON • Former US national security adviser John Bolton privately told Attorney-General William Barr last year that he had concerns that President Donald Trump was effectively granting personal favours to the autocratic leaders of Turkey and China, according to an unpublished manuscript of a book by Mr Bolton.

Mr Barr responded by pointing to two Justice Department investigations of companies in those countries, and said he was worried that Mr Trump had created the appearance that he had undue influence over what would typically be independent inquiries, according to the manuscript.

Backing up his point, Mr Barr mentioned conversations that Mr Trump had with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Xi Jinping of China.

The former national security adviser's account underscores the fact that the unease about Mr Trump's seeming embrace of authoritarian leaders, long expressed by experts and his opponents, also existed among some of the senior Cabinet officers entrusted by the President to carry out his foreign policy and national security agendas.

Mr Bolton recounted the discussion with Mr Barr in a draft of an unpublished book manuscript that he submitted nearly a month ago to the White House for review.

People familiar with the manuscript described its contents on condition of anonymity.

The book also contains an account of Mr Trump telling Mr Bolton last August that he wanted to continue freezing US$391 million (S$531 million) in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations of the President's political rivals, The New York Times reported on Sunday. The matter is at the heart of the articles of impeachment against the President.

In a statement on Monday, Mr Bolton, his publisher Simon & Schuster and his literary agency Javelin said they had not shared the manuscript with NYTimes.

"There was absolutely no coordination with The New York Times or anyone else regarding the appearance of information about his book, The Room Where It Happened, at online booksellers," they said.

"Any assertion to the contrary is unfounded speculation."

NYTimes' executive editor Dean Baquet said: "The Times does not discuss its sources, but I should point out that no one has questioned the accuracy of our report."

In the manuscript, Mr Bolton also said Mr Barr singled out Mr Trump's conversations with Mr Xi about the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE, which agreed in 2017 to plead guilty and pay heavy fines for violating US sanctions on doing business with North Korea, Iran and other countries.

A year later, Mr Trump lifted the sanctions - over objections from his own advisers and Republican lawmakers.

Mr Barr also cited remarks Mr Trump made to Mr Erdogan in 2018 about the investigation of Halkbank, Turkey's second-largest state-owned bank. The Justice Department was scrutinising Halkbank over fraud and money laundering charges for helping Iran evade sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department.

Mr Erdogan had been making personal appeals to Mr Trump to use his authority to halt any additional enforcement against the bank. In 2018, Mr Erdogan told reporters in Turkey that Mr Trump had promised to instruct his Cabinet members to follow through on the matter.

The bank had hired a top Republican fundraiser to lobby the administration on the issue.

For months, it looked as if the unusual lobbying effort might succeed - but in October, the Justice Department indicted the bank for aiding Iran.

The charges were seen in part as a bid by the administration to show that it was taking a tough line on Turkey, amid an outcry over Mr Trump's endorsement of its incursions in Syria.

Mr Bolton's statements in the book align with other comments he has made since leaving the White House last September.

In November, he said in a private speech that none of Mr Trump's advisers shared the President's views on Turkey and that he believed Mr Trump adopted a more permissive approach to the country because of his financial ties there, NBC News reported. Mr Trump's company has a property in Turkey.

Mr Trump has repeatedly praised dictators throughout his presidency. Last year, he said, "Where's my favourite dictator?" as he waited to meet President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt, The Wall Street Journal reported.

His soft spot for authoritarians dates at least to his presidential campaign, when he suggested that the world would be better off if Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed Libyan dictator who was killed in a violent uprising in 2011, were "in charge right now".

He has been similarly effusive about Mr Xi. When the Chinese Communist Party eliminated term limits, allowing Mr Xi to keep his tenure open-ended, Mr Trump extolled the outcome.

NYTIMES