Former National Security Adviser John Bolton was so alarmed by a White House–linked effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats, he told aide Fiona Hill to alert the National Security Council's chief lawyer, Hill told House impeachment investigators in her 10-hour deposition on Monday, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal report. Specifically, Bolton told Hill, the top NSC staffer on Russia and Eurasian affairs, to notify White House lawyers that Rudy Giuliani, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland were running a rogue operation, the Times reports.
"I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up," Bolton reportedly told Hill to relate to the lawyers, after a heated July 10 meeting with Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a key player in the Ukraine pressure campaign, and Ukrainian officals. Before that meeting, Hill reportedly testified, Bolton told her that "Giuliani's a hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up." Giuliani, President Trump's personal lawyer, is now under federal criminal investigation for his work in Ukraine, the Journal reported Monday. Sondland is scheduled to be deposed on Thursday.
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