John Bolton provides a harrowing portrait of Trump's surrender to Putin. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/john-bolton-provides-a-harrowing-portrait-of-trumps-surrender-to-putin/ via @MotherJones

According to Trump’s own top intelligence officials, Moscow is currently trying to intervene in the 2020 campaign. Both FBI Director Wray and DNI Ratcliffe have said so in congressional testimony, without providing details about the ongoing covert Russian efforts.

So one obvious question is, what is Trump doing about this?

The answer, per Bolton, is nothing.

In his book, Bolton does not go into great depth on this crucial matter. But Trump’s former national security adviser notes that Trump “willfully ignored or denied that Russia was meddling globally in US and many other elections.”

Trump has downplayed or dismissed the Russian attack, even though the US intelligence community has concluded it occurred and was mounted by Vladimir Putin in part to help Trump win.

“Trump believed that acknowledging Russia’s meddling in US politics, or in that of many other countries in Europe and elsewhere, would implicitly acknowledge that he had colluded with Russia in his 2016 campaign,” Bolton writes.

Trump has long yearned to remove the taint of Russian intervention—the asterisk—from his 2016 election.

That is one reason that Trump, desperate to promote an alternative (and false) narrative, pushed the Ukrainians for that investigation—a blatant abuse of power that led to his impeachment.

To clear this real stain, Trump has had to deny the basic reality: Putin mounted a successful campaign of information warfare against the United States.

Trump did this most famously during a joint press conference with Putin in Helsinki in July 2018.

“I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said, adding that Putin “said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

This was a dramatic moment—a US president siding with a foreign adversary who had attacked the United States. In his book, Bolton recalls that he and John Kelly, then the White House chief of staff, “were almost frozen to our seats by Trump’s answer.”

Prior to the Helsinki meeting, Bolton took a shot at nudging Trump to confront Putin’s aggression. He writes:

"I gave Trump a paper I had asked the White House Counsel’s office to draft, laying out our objections to Russian election meddling. "

"Trump made several changes to it, reflecting his general unease with the subject. It was precisely to deal with that unease that I asked for the paper."

"Trump could make the point of our intense opposition to election interference by handing Putin the paper, obviating the need for a long conversation.

Ultimately, Trump decided not to use the document."

"He wanted me to raise election interference, which I said I would do in the scheduled working lunch, but obviously I wouldn’t be in the one-on-one with Putin he wanted so much."

Trump could not even hand Putin a piece of paper to defend the United States against Russia intervention. This was both a betrayal of the national interest and an abandonment of his obligations as commander in chief.

Bolton confirms that Trump could not bring himself to challenge Putin: “Trump repeatedly objected to criticizing Russia and pressed us not to be so critical of Russia publicly.”

And when the State Department did take steps, in accordance with legislation, to increase sanctions on Russia, Trump, Bolton says, wanted to rescind them.