Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton has told The Telegraph that in 2019, President Donald Trump ordered the removal of UK Ambassador to the US Kim Darroch following a leak of the envoy's memos, which showed him making derogatory comments about POTUS.
Dwelling on his job at the White House, Bolton said that "the hardest US-UK issue really was when some of the cables back from the UK ambassador became public".
The ex-US national security adviser, who resigned in September 2019, added that the morning the memos appeared Trump called him and said, "get him [Darroch] out of here".
"So I called [the UK's top civil servant, Sir Mark] Sedwill. It was out in the press in Britain, obviously everybody knew about it. I said 'this isn't going to end well, you've got to pull him out'", said Bolton.
He told Sedwill that the US and the UK were "at a point here where things are going to get worse unless you can figure out how to get him out".
"So that dragged on for a couple of days until I think they finally figured this was not a plus for anybody and then withdrew him", Bolton concluded.
As far as Sedwill is concerned, he reportedly retaliated in a "candid" showdown after Bolton's call, insisting that Darroch could not be "run out of town". Neither the former UK ambassador to the US nor the White House has commented on the issue yet.
Trump's reported order to expel Darroch came after the Daily Mail published excerpts from the envoy's confidential memos in early July 2019, in which the diplomat described the White House as "uniquely dysfunctional" and warned that Trump could end up in "disgrace". Darroch also dubbed the US president inept, insecure, and incompetent.
...handled. I told @theresa_may how to do that deal, but she went her own foolish way-was unable to get it done. A disaster! I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool. Tell him the USA now has the best Economy & Military anywhere in the World, by far...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2019
....and they are both only getting bigger, better and stronger.....Thank you, Mr. President!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2019
The ambassador resigned a day after Trump in a 9 July 2019 tweet called him a "wacky" person and a "very stupid guy".
Media reports claimed that Darroch quit because Boris Johnson, then-frontrunner to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, refused to back the envoy during a Conservative leadership TV debate.
