The Boston Globe - 11.09.2019

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 The Boston Globe The Nation A

Trump and his aides pri-
vately blamed the national se-
curity adviser for news reports
describing Bolton’s opposition
to the deal. Vice President
Mike Pence and his camp like-
wise grew angry at reports sug-
gesting he had agreed with
Bolton.
“I informed John Bolton
last night that his services are
no longer needed at the White
House,” the president wrote on
Twitter. “I disagreed strongly
with many of his suggestions,
as did others in the Adminis-
tration, and therefore I asked
John for his resignation, which
was given to me this morning.
I thank John very much for his
service.”
Bolton disputed the presi-
dent’s version of how the end
came in his own message on
Twitter shortly afterward. “I of-
fered to resign last night and
President Trump said, ‘Let’s
talk about it tomorrow,’ ” Bol-
ton wrote.
Responding to a question
from The New York Times via
text, Bolton said his resigna-
tion was his own initiative, not
the president’s. “Offered last
night without his asking,” he
wrote. “Slept on it and gave it
to him this morning.”
Trump said he would ap-
point a replacement “next
week,” setting off a process that
should offer clues to where the
president wants to take his for-
eign policy before next year’s
election. In the meantime, a
White House spokesman said
Charles Kupperman, the depu-
ty national security adviser,
would be his acting adviser.
The national security advis-
er’s dismissal came so abruptly
that it was announced barely
an hour after the White House
scheduled a briefing on terror-
ism for 1:30 p.m. at which Bol-
ton was supposed to appear
alongside Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo and Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin. But
Bolton left the White House,
and the briefing proceeded

uBOLTON
Continued from Page A

without him. Pompeo, who has feuded with Bolton for months, shed no tears about the president’s decision. “He should have people he trusts and values,” Pompeo told reporters. And he made no effort to hide his ri- valry with Bolton. “There were definitely places that Ambassa- dor Bolton and I had different views about how we should proceed,” he said. Bolton’s departure came as Trump is pursuing diplomatic openings with some of the United States’ most intractable enemies, efforts that have trou- bled hard-liners in the administration, like Bolton, who view North Korea and Iran as pro- foundly untrustworthy. Bolton saw his job as stop- ping Trump from making un- wise agreements. “While John Bolton was national security adviser for the last 17 months, there have been no bad deals,” a person close to Bolton said minutes after the president’s announcement on Tuesday, re- flecting the ousted adviser’s view.

To Bolton’s aggravation, the president has continued to court Kim Jong Un, the repres- sive leader of North Korea, de- spite Kim’s refusal to surrender his nuclear program and de- spite repeated short-range mis- sile tests by the North that have rattled its neighbors. In recent days, Trump has also expressed a willingness to meet with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran under the right circumstances, and even to extend short-term financing to Tehran. Pompeo confirmed on Tuesday that it was possible such a meeting could take place this month on the side- lines of the UN General Assem- bly session in New York. The rift between the president and his national security adviser owed as much to per- sonality as to policy. The president never warmed to him, a dynamic that is often fatal in this White House. Bolton’s crit- ics inside the administration said he irritated the president by undermining policies even after they were decided. At its core, the schism re-

flected a deep-seated philo- sophical difference that has characterized the Trump presi- dency. While given to bellicose language, Trump came to of- fice deeply skeptical of over- seas military adventures and promising negotiations to re- solve volatile conflicts. Bolton, however, has been one of Washington’s most outspoken hawks and unapologet- ic advocates of American pow- er to defend the country’s in- terests. To his admirers, Bolton was supposed to be a check on what they feared would be na- ive diplomacy, a cleareyed real- ist who would keep a president without prior experience in foreign affairs from giving away the store to wily adver- saries. But Trump has long complained privately that Bol- ton was too willing to get the United States into another war. Bolton’s departure caught White House aides and law- makers off guard. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican from Utah and a former party nomi- nee for president, called the

news “an extraordinary loss for our nation and the White House.” “The fact that he was a con- trarian from time to time was an asset, not a liability,” Rom- neysaid. But Republicans like Sena- tor Rand Paul of Kentucky who have tried to push Trump away from foreign intervention were openly gleeful. “The threat of war worldwide goes down ex- ponentially with John Bolton out of the White House,” Paul told reporters. “ Among others pleased to be rid of Bolton were Iran’s lead-

ers, who viewed him as an ene- my of peace. Hesameddin Ash- ena, Rouhani’s top political adviser, tweeted that Bolton getting sidelined was “a defini- tive sign that Washington’s maximum pressure on Iran has failed” and that “Iran’s block- ade will end.” A former undersecretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations under Presi- dent George W. Bush, Bolton, 70, was tapped as national security adviser in March 2018 after impressing Trump with his outspoken performances on Fox News.

Democrat who won a tradition-
ally Republican district in the
Chicago suburbs last year and
came out in support of starting
an impeachment inquiry on
Twitter late last month.
The House Judiciary Com-
mittee this week announced it
was ready to amp up its investi-
gation into whether to open a
formal inquiry. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi has so far opposed
that move, but House Demo-
crats on Tuesday rushed to
downplay any signs of a divide
over how to proceed, even as
time was running out to make a
decision.
Massachusetts Representa-
tive Bill Keating, who was
among the party members who
this summer endorsed the start
of impeachment proceedings,
said Pelosi “was supportive” of
the Judiciary Committee move
during a closed meeting Tuesday
morning of House Democrats.
House Judiciary Committee
chairman Jerrold Nadler has
said his committee will meet
Thursday to vote on new proce-
dures for its hearings over
whether to recommend the im-
peachment inquiry. If they’re
adopted, as expected, the
changes would lengthen the
time witnesses can testify, allow
the committee to analyze evi-
dence in closed session, and al-
low Trump to respond to allega-
tions in writing.
House Judiciary member
David Cicilline of Rhode Island
called the step significant, say-
ing it was the first time the com-
mittee would formally consider
the question of impeachment
and that it was in line with Pelo-
si’s direction. “The speaker’s po-
sition has been the committees
must move forward with our
oversight responsibilities, that
we must follow the facts wher-
ever they take us, and that no
one’s above the law,” he said.
Pelosi has resisted calls to
start an impeachment investi-
gation out of concern that it
could backfire politically, given
tepid public support and near-
solid Republican opposition. A
senior staffer with a House Ju-
diciary committee member said

uIMPEACHMENT
Continued from Page A

Pelosi and Nadler had long been at odds over whether to move forward with the impeachment inquiry and that some within the caucus had grown frustrated with the speaker for not moving more swiftly. Pelosi has said she wants to make sure all means are ex- hausted before deciding whether to launch an impeachment inquiry, pointing to pending court cases and at least six ongoing congressional investiga- tions under the Judiciary, Over- sight and Reform, and Intelli- gence committees. “My position has always been, whatever decision we made in that regard would have to be done with our strongest possible hand, and we still have some outstanding matters in the courts,” Pelosi said before the summer break. “It’s about the Congress, the Constitution, and the courts, and we are fighting the president in the courts.” Pelosi did not comment to reporters after leaving the meeting of House Democrats Tuesday. If Democrats don’t launch an inquiry soon, they risk hav- ing an impeachment effort spill into next year’s election season. But Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, said he believes the next three months will provide enough time for committees to dig into the facts. “We don’t want to politicize this,” he said. “We have to pur- sue it until we get a resolution, but I think it is much better to do this before the Iowa caucus- es.” At least 134 of 235 House Democrats publicly favor starting the impeachment inquiry, according to a CNN count. Just under 100 Democrats support- ed an inquiry before the summer recess began. But most members in favor of the inquiry are from progres- sive or safe Democratic dis- tricts. Members in swing dis- tricts were in favor of continu- ing the ongoing deliberate process outlined by Pelosi. A Quinnipiac University poll

released in late July found that 32 percent of Americans thought Congress should begin the process to impeach Trump, even as his approval ratings have consistently remained low. Yet the calls for impeachment among House Democrats have grown as the Trump administration has refused to co- operate with congressional in- vestigations, disregarding sub- poenas related to providing his tax returns, the unredacted re- port from former special coun- selRobertMueller,andtesti- mony from former White House counsel Don McGahn. Before her Twitter state- ment, Underwood had previ- ously believed people in her district cared more about issues such as health care than impeachment. Now she approved of the Judiciary Committee’s latest move. “It’s about being deliberate,” she said. “And it’s about being diligent to make sure that we are being given all the facts in order to do our jobs to protect our country from this ever hap- pening again.” Underwood and some other House Democrats on Tuesday said the questions over impeachment were nonstop during the summer. “One thing I didn’t hear was that the House shouldn’t be looking into these issues,” Keat- ing said. “It is a question of how and what timeline. Those are things that differed among people.” It was the kind of ground- swell that Democrats had hoped for ahead of long-await- ed testimony from Mueller, who days before the summer break appeared before two House committees to explain his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible attempts by Trump to hinder the probe. Mu- eller’s testimony did not pro- duce any bombshells and was seen as underwhelming, but he did confirm that he did not ex- onerate Trump of obstruction of justice after a two-year investigation. The House Judiciary Com- mittee vote over its new proce-

dures comes as Corey Lewan- dowski, Trump’s former cam- paign manager, is set to testify at a hearing next week. Nadler said Trump twice asked Lewandowski to deliver a message to former attorney general Jeff Sessions in attempts to limit the Mueller investigation, “making him a crit- ical witness to presidential obstruction of justice.” The committee also has sub- poenaed former White House aides Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn, whom Nadler said witnessed Trump’s repeated obstruction, to appear at the same hearing. “The adoption of these addi- tional procedures is the next step in that process and will help ensure our impeachment hearings are informative to Congress and the public, while providing the president with the ability to respond to evi- dence presented against him,” Nadler said this week. “We will not allow Trump’s continued obstruction to stop us from de- livering the truth to the Ameri- can people.”

Jazmine Ulloa can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @jazmineulloa.

Call for impeachment gains strength

Bolton out as security adviser after clashes with Trump

DOUG MILLS/NEW YORK TIMES President Trump’s issues with John Bolton reportedly came to a head over a Taliban peace agreement, which Bolton counseled against.

BOSTON GLOBE MEDIA 1 Exchange Place, Suite 201 Boston, MA 02109-

The Boston Globe (USPS 061-420) is published Monday-Saturday. Periodicals postage-paid at Boston, MA. Postmaster, send address changes to: Ma Subscription Departmentil 1 Exchange Place, Suite 201 Boston, MA 02109-

YEARLY MAIL SUBSCRIPTION RATES FOR NEW ENGLAND Seven days $886. Daily (6 Days) $599. Sunday only $390.

For all other mail subscription rates and information, call1-888-MYGLOBEor visit http://www.bostonglobe.com/subscribe Free newspaper reading service for the visually impaired: Contact Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library at 800-852-3133 or http://www.perkinslibrary.org

CITYWIDE RIDE 2019

HUBONWHEELS

BOSTON’S 15TH ANNUAL

BENEFITINGBOSTON CHILDRENS HOSPITAL

SUNDAY september 15 TWO ROUTES:DOWNTOWN & EMERALD NECKLACE LOOPS

FREEPOST-RIDE PARTY ON CITY HALL PLAZA -- OPEN TO ALL!

hubonwheels.com

LOCK IN YOUR SPOT TODAY!

STAY ON TOP OF BOSTON

LIFE SCIENCES

Check out Boston, Briefly — a free, weekly newsletter from STAT that rounds up the week’s biggest stories in the Greater Boston area — from Longwood to Kendall Square.

To get the free newsletter, visit STATNEWS.COM/BOSTON-BRIEFLY

BOSTON BRIEFLY

DONATEYOURCAR

Wheels For Wishes

Benefiting

Make-A-Wish® Massachussetts andRhodeIsland

*100%TaxDeductible * Free Vehicle Pickup ANYWHERE * We Accept Most Vehicles Running or Not *WeAlsoAcceptBoats,Motorcycles&RVs

WheelsForWishes.org Call:(857)220- *CarDonationFoundationd/b/aWheelsForWishes.Tolearnmoreabout ourprogramsorfinancialinformation,call(213)948-2000orvisitwww.wheelsforwishes.org.

The Boston Globe - 11.09.2019

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources