bolton the lead 0722020
Trump's former adviser says President is trying to avoid responsibility
01:37 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

Former White House national security adviser John Bolton said Thursday that he had personally weathered President Donald Trump’s anger at receiving intelligence briefings pertaining to Russia.

“I think I have enough scars from bringing up things about Russia that he probably didn’t want to hear, that I can say I agree with” accounts from other former officials that Trump did not want to hear negative information linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bolton told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday.

Bolton’s comments follow denials from the White House that Trump was “personally briefed” on reports that Russia offered bounties to Taliban fighters to kill US troops in Afghanistan.

But the intelligence was included in one of Trump’s daily briefings on intelligence matters sometime in the spring, according to a US official with direct knowledge of the latest information. And a source familiar with the situation told CNN the White House was provided with such intelligence in early 2019.

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 Brief, to brief him verbally less often on Russia-related threats to the US, according to multiple former Trump administration officials who briefed Trump, were present for briefings and who prepared documents for his intelligence briefings.

Bolton asserted Thursday that “everybody understood the nature of Russia’s activities – with the possible exception of the President.”

“And so a lot of activity went on as you might expect it would, and we just, we tried to inform the President, tried to get his reaction,” Bolton continued. “Steps were taken – I think, importantly – to deal with Russian threats, but usually as the President grumbled and complained along the way.”

The intelligence reports that referenced the Russian-offered bounties for killing American soldiers were passed to top officials at the National Security Council, including Bolton, who would have ultimately decided whether or not to brief the President on the matter, a source familiar with the situation told CNN earlier this week.

The source added that they did not know whether Bolton had chosen to do so, but did know that Bolton was aware of the reports. Multiple sources have told CNN that Bolton is a veracious consumer of intelligence.

When pressed on Thursday if he was willing to say whether or not he told Trump about the Russian bounties, or had heard about the report before it was first reported by The New York Times, Bolton said that he was “not going to talk about classified information.”

Bolton has previously cast doubt on whether the briefings with Trump were effective. He wrote in his memoir released last week, “I didn’t think these briefings were terribly useful, and neither did the intelligence community, since much of the time was spent listening to Trump rather than Trump listening to the briefers.”

CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Jim Sciutto, Barbara Starr, Paul LeBlanc, Jamie Gangel, Kevin Liptak and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.