(Bolton Book Tidbits) Trump and Putin preferred the Helsinki summit to be in Vienna, where soon-to-be—or then—Putin-Trump middleman Firtash was hiding as a fugitive. And consistent with the Red Sea Conspiracy narrative, Putin wanted Trump to know Russia didn't need Iran in Syria.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 2) In being obsessed with Iran, Bolton played into Putin's hands—as Putin's plan was essentially to trade our withdrawal from Syria for convincing Iran to exit the area too, thereby leaving Russia as the chief out-of-country powerhouse in the war-torn nation.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 3) Putin told Bolton to tell Trump Crimea was Obama's fault—a fascinating exchange, as it is Putin directly feeding (false) Kremlin propaganda to Trump via his NSA (who Putin had hoped would be Flynn), knowing Trump would repeat it because it was anti-Obama.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 4) In much the same way, Putin was telling Bolton the Kremlin opposed any U.S. missile sales to Ukraine at the very moment Trump was having Giuliani negotiate privately with Poroshenko on U.S. military aid. The result? Ukraine struggled to get those missiles.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 5) As Bolton is oddly clueless about how any piece of intel fits in with any other, he misses the fact that he's being used to send Trump terms Putin will later repeat privately: you must cease all military aid to Ukraine. And what happened? Well—we all know.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 6) Pre-Helsinki, Putin played with Bolton like a child's toy. Putin saying Muslim nations might rise up against Israel with Iran? Putin knew it wasn't so—as did Trump—but Putin was testing how much Bolton had been read in on Saudi-Emirati-Israeli collusion.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 7) People must remember that Trump told the Russians he was running for POTUS (11/2013) before he told the New York GOP (12/2013). And he was talking to the Kremlin about it as it was overseeing the events in Ukraine that would lead to its invasion of Crimea.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 8) I mention this because Bolton was mystified that Trump personally deleted any reference to NATO's article 5 in his 2017 NATO address when of *course* he did—part of getting his Trump Tower Moscow was committing to stay out of Putin's way in eastern Europe.
(Bolton Book Tidbits 9) The idea that Trump's opposition to helping defend Europe against Russia is based on non-payment of dues—I repeat: non-payment of dues!—is laughable. It is a geopolitical decision made for Trump's usual reason: greed. Dues payment is a silly red herring.
