Maybe John Bolton's Book Matters?

I haven't purchased John Bolton's book about working in the Trump administration. I don't want to reward the man who could have testified in a timely way and whose career was disastrous before he joined the Trump administration. Nor will I read pirated versions of the book because that's wrong.

I never expected much to come from this book.

But Bolton's book seems to have opened a floodgate of important information, as other sources are coming forth to the press. 

First, we had the story that Russian agents were paying bounties to "Taliban-related militants" who killed American forces in Afghanistan--and that the administration knew it. It took the Trump administration a full day to come up with the story that neither Trump nor Pence received the intel reports in question. Trump tweeted to that effect. 

Now we know--ok, we've always known--they were lying. Trump received written briefings in writing. And he's done nothing. 

Who knows whether the Russia-Afghanistan story would have appeared without Bolton's book? But the story confirms our sense that Trump is somehow beholden to Vladimir Putin. Americans have died, and Trump has done nothing to retaliate.

Now CNN is running another story concerning Trump's phone calls with world leaders. The big picture? Trump is especially accessible and responsive to dictators, especially Turkey's Erdogan, he insults our allies (he called Angela Merkel "stupid"), he doesn't prepare, and he puts his interests before the national interest. 

CNN: 

The full, detailed picture drawn by CNN's sources of Trump's phone calls with foreign leaders is consistent with the basic tenor and some substantive elements of a limited number of calls described by former national security adviser John Bolton in his book, "The Room Where It Happened." But the calls described to CNN cover a far longer period than Bolton's tenure, are much more comprehensive — and seemingly more damning -- in their sweep.

And,

One person familiar with almost all the conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western Europe described the calls cumulatively as 'abominations' so grievous to US national security interests that if members of Congress heard from witnesses to the actual conversations or read the texts and contemporaneous notes, even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President.

"America First," my ass.