John Bolton, President Trump’s former National Security Adviser, published a fascinating book on his work at the White House from April 2018 to September 2019. His revealing book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, shows why President Trump is unfit for office and incompetent. Bolton emphasized repeatedly that everything Trump did was either to secure his reelection or for his own self-interest, contrary to the interests of the country.
Today we will focus solely on Trump’s unholy relationship with the dictator of Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom President Trump calls “The Sultan.” Turkey is mentioned 135 times in Bolton’s 570-page book. Erdoğan is mentioned 95 times. This shows the importance the White House places on Turkey and Erdoğan, President Trump’s “close friend.” Surprisingly, neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan is mentioned in the book even though Bolton made a trip to both countries during his tenure.
In The Room Where It Happened, Bolton compares Erdoğan’s tone on a phone call with Trump to “Mussolini speaking from his Rome balcony,” describing the Turkish leader as a “radical Islamicist.”
Erdoğan, during his multiple visits to the White House and 20 phone calls with President Trump, repeatedly raised the following three priority demands from Trump
1) The release of Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab from arrest in the United States by appealing to President Trump to drop the charges against him. Zarrab, with Erdoğan’s blessing, had laundered $20 billion to Iran through the Turkish government-owned Halkbank to circumvent the U.S. sanctions on Iran;
2) The extradition from the United States to Turkey of Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish cleric, who after his close alliance with Erdoğan, split with him and became the Turkish President’s enemy number one. Erdoğan falsely accused Gülen of leading the Turkish coup attempt in 2016.
