Given that turbulent debate, it’s worth looking at exactly what four of them — Esper, William P. Barr, John Bolton and Stephanie Grisham — said during their terms, when they left and when they finally decided to speak out.
Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper
When he supported Trump: Esper generally stayed away from political affairs. But during a call with governors amid racial justice rallies in the summer of 2020, Esper echoed Trump’s call for a heavy-handed approach: “I think the sooner he gets focused and dominates the battlespace, the more It will quickly dissipate and we can return. to the normal right.” Esper soon appeared at a political photo op at a church after law enforcement forcibly cleared Lafayette Square outside the White House. Esper also defended Trump in September 2020 amid a report that Trump had disparaged the troops, emphasizing Trump’s respect for the troops without outright denying the report.
When he broke up with Trump: Despite comments about the governors’ call, Esper internally opposed Trump’s idea of using 10,000 active-duty troops to suppress demonstrations, acknowledging that he was wrong in both his choice of words and his appearance at the photo shoot. He also publicly, albeit indirectly, rebuked Trump’s idea of using the Insurrection Act to quell demonstrations, as well as Trump’s idea of illegally bombing Iranian cultural sites. Esper also alienated Trump by banning the Confederate flag from military bases, and credited intelligence reports that Russian soldiers had offered bounties to Taliban fighters for killing Americans, which Trump called a “hoax.”
what he wrote after: In Esper’s new book, he confirms that Trump floated the idea of shooting protesters in the leg and says that Trump also somehow proposed surreptitiously bombing drug cartels on Mexican soil. (He says the latter would be an “act of war” and illegal.) He also writes that Trump wanted to court-martial two prominent generals, Stanley McChrystal and William H. McRaven, who had criticized him. He has also said in book-related interviews that Trump is a threat to democracy and that Trump did incite protesters on January 1. 6, 2021.
His explanation for not saying these things sooner and risking being fired: He told The Post: “I don’t know who will come after me, and I had no confidence that they would do the things that I was doing, that they would back down. My concern was that they would actually implement some of these wacky ideas.” But that begs the question: why not speak up after Trump fired him in November 2020?
Attorney General William P. Barr
When he supported Trump: Time and time again, Barr intervened in unorthodox ways in legal matters, on behalf of Trump allies. She provided Trump with a politically useful and misleading summary of the Mueller report. She launched an investigation into the Russia probe itself, which Trump had repeatedly called for. After the election, Barr also ran afoul of Justice Department protocol and fed into Trump’s election conspiracy theories by announcing that the Justice Department would investigate “vote tabulation irregularities.”
When he broke up with Trump: Barr refused to hold a press conference absolving Trump of blame in the Ukraine scandal. And after the 2020 election, he finally rebuked Trump’s voter fraud claims, saying in early December 2020, “To date, we haven’t seen fraud on a scale that could have had a different outcome in the election.” .
what he wrote after: Under pressure from Trump to resign, Barr only praised the president after his departure in December 2020: “His record is even more historic because he pulled it off in the face of unrelenting, relentless resistance.” In his book, however, Barr more directly rebuked Trump’s claims of massive voter fraud, writing that he compared them to bovine excrement in a meeting with Trump. He also told Jonathan Karl that he had indeed already come to this conclusion when he announced that the Justice Department would investigate such matters in November 2020. He also said publicly, as did Esper, that Trump was “responsible in a broad sense” for the January 1 6.
His explanation for not saying these things sooner.Under questioning from NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, Barr emphasized that her resignation came after the electoral college voted on Dec. 1. January 14, 2020. “The idea that something could be done later on January 1. 6 was nonsense. Once the election was set for December 1. On the 14th, I submitted my resignation and I knew that Trump was going to leave office.” But like Esper’s explanation, that ignores how much this information could have been useful even shortly after his departure, both during the Trump impeachment trial and in preventing the events of January 1. 6.
National Security Advisor John Bolton
When he supported Trump: Echoed Trump’s questioning of Russia’s assistance to Trump’s 2016 campaign, suggesting in late 2016 that it might have been a “false flag.” He later also claimed that Trump did not doubt Russia’s interference with his “hoax” speech, even though Trump had clearly done so. He declared that Trump’s controversial summit with Kim Jong Un in 2019 had been a success, despite little evidence of political breakthroughs and a public relations victory for North Korea. He defended Trump by saying that he took Kim “at face value” that North Korea did not kill Otto Warmbier, pretending that Trump’s statement did not accept the claim. And he argued that Trump ordered an attack on Iran and then called it off at the last minute.
When he broke up with Trump: Even supporting Trump’s summit with Kim, Bolton’s hawk was considerably less optimistic about it. Towards the end of his term, Bolton increasingly broke with Trump, most notably on Trump’s push for a peace deal with the Taliban and Ukraine, though he generally did so in private.
what he wrote after: Bolton’s departure was less amicable than the others: Trump claimed he had fired Bolton, but Bolton said he had offered his resignation in advance, offering little praise for Trump at the time. Shortly after his departure, and amid the growing Ukraine scandal, a leaked draft of Bolton’s book severely undermines Trump’s claim that his talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were not a quid pro quo The book also contradicted several top administration officials on the matter. Bolton would go on to say that basically all of Trump’s foreign policy decisions were “driven by re-election calculations” and that Trump sought help in his re-election from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
His explanation for not saying these things sooner.Despite everything, Bolton refused to ignore White House objections and testify in Trump’s first impeachment trial, despite saying he was willing to do so if given the green light. He cited possible legal repercussions and then reflected that he didn’t think his testimony would have changed the outcome of the Trump impeachment.
Stephanie Grisham, White House Press Secretary
When she supported Trump: In his role as White House spokesman, this was literally his job, although he did it less than most because he never actually held a press conference. She defended Trump by calling the so-called Never Trump Republicans “human scum.” When former chief of staff John Kelly criticized Trump, she said: “I worked with John Kelly and he was not prepared to handle the genius of our president.” After Trump suggested a deceased former congressional critic was in hell, she defended Trump as a “backlasher.”
When he broke up with Trump: Like a few others, Grisham resigned after January. On February 6, on that very day, in fact, but he later claimed that he was “done” with the White House for six months prior. She (she had been moved from a press secretary to a job on First Lady Melania Trump’s staff, where she had previously worked).
what she wrote next: Said Trump told Vladimir Putin at a summit: “I’m going to get a little tougher on you for a few minutes. But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we talk.” She said Trump looked at a young female staffer and made inappropriate sexual comments about him and others. She said that “the upcoming election influenced every decision Trump made on the pandemic.” She said in book interviews that there was a “culture of abuse” in the White House.” She said she was “terrified” by the possibility of another Trump term and regretted allowing White House dishonesty.
His explanation for not saying these things sooner.: While at the White House, Grisham lamented that reporters were “writing books now. I mean, everyone is getting famous with this presidency.” As for her own book — and why she didn’t talk out of that context as much — particularly about Jan. 6 — she told Business Insider, “I just needed a little bit of time to deprogram myself, be quiet and calm, and just figure out, you know , what was my position in many things”. She added: “And then I found out I was going to write the book and they put me under some pretty heavy pressure. [nondisclosure agreement] gag order…”