This was all nonsense
CNN has some more nibbles from Bolton’s book.
Bolton writes that in December 2018, Trump offered to help Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a Justice Department investigation into a Turkish bank with ties to Erdogan that was suspected of violating US Iran sanctions. When the Turkish leader presented Trump with a memo from the law firm representing Halkbank, Trump flipped through it and then declared he believed the bank was totally innocent of violating US sanctions related to Iran.
Well thank goodness he looked into it thoroughly before committing himself.
Trump told Erdogan he would “take care of things,” and explained that the Southern District prosecutors “were not his people, but were Obama people,” and the problem would be fixed when they were replaced by his people.
Bolton notes that “this was all nonsense” because the Justice Department prosecutors were career employees who would have taken the same path with the Halkbank probe regardless of who was president.
Well Trump doesn’t understand fine distinctions of that kind. He thinks he has Absolute Power to do Absolutely Anything that pops into his head.
Before joining Trump’s White House, Bolton says he had a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who questioned Jared Kushner’s role in developing a Middle East peace plan.
Netanyahu “was dubious about assigning the task of bringing an end to the Israel-Palestinian conflict to Kushner, whose family Netanyahu had known for many years. He was enough of a politician not to oppose the idea publicly, but like much of the world, he wondered why Kushner thought he would succeed where the likes of Kissinger had failed.”
Being such a callow empty suit and having zero relevant education or expertise or experience. Maybe these guys think being rich translates to being universally skilled?
Speaking of Kushner and Turkey, I was amused by this from the Washington Post article:
Rule by son-in-law–that would be grampocracy, if my ancient Greek googling skills are any good. Mussolini practiced that, too.
Actually, I think in Ancient Greek it would be “gambocracy”.
I imagine he also doesn’t understand that other presidents haven’t demanded, or received, such slavering loyalty in the people they appointed. Oh, Obama appointed him? He is 100% loyal to Obama, never mind what is real. He assumes Obama looked for appointees the same way he does, someone with few real skills or qualifications, but loyal to Obama.
Trump’s projector is so powerful, if he wanted to, he could make shadow puppets on the moon.