Trump thinks Kelley was the source for The Atlantic story.

[Sogo]

....which only lends credence to it. Why would he suspect Kelley, except that he knew what he had said to Kelley over his son's grave?....

[tanyev]

1. Revenge is a dish best served cold, 2 months before the election.

[LAS14]

2. Exactly!! Just what I was going to reply when I saw your subject line. nt

[mucifer]

3. It would be amazing if Kelley confirms it in a few weeks after the story dies down in the news

[malaise]

4. Precisely

Rec

[at140]

5. John Bolton just wrote a book critical of Trump

and John Bolton said "I was there and didn't hear that".
I am not hanging my hat on this story.

[Spazito]

7. Yes, John Bolton is trustworthy, right? LOL

Bolton wrote a book glorifying himself with some lukewarm criticism of the squatter in chief put in to try and sell more books.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Why would you believe John Bolton?

[at140]

14. I belived what he said in his book about his boss, Trump

and it was not good.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. What he did say was probably true, but his agenda

wasn't to take down Trump; otherwise he'd have voluntarily testified at the impeachment trial. His agenda was to show that (a) he's smarter than Trump (not too hard a hurdle) as well as everyone else in the administration; (b) to complain that Trump wasn't hawkish enough - Bolton has always wanted to start a war with Iran - fortunately that didn't happen; and (c) to make money selling his book. Bolton was pissed off because Trump didn't follow his agenda, but although he was pissed off enough to write a critical (but mostly boring and self-glorifying) book, he wasn't pissed off enough to do anything to help get rid of Trump when it was possible. He didn't want to get rid of Trump because he wanted to keep a GOP president in power. Pence, who would be Trump's successor, is weak and couldn't win an election, but Bolton most likely figured Trump could. More than anything Bolton is an ideologue. He wanted to get even with Trump for being a dolt who didn't want to bomb Iran and show how much smarter he (Bolton) is than everybody else, but he never wanted to bring down the administration. If he ever did hear Trump trash the military I doubt he would have reported it, because if there's a third rail that would be it.

[uponit7771]

11. Did the story said Trump said this around others and a number of people heard it? IF not then

... this looks like some word smithing form Bolton then.

Of course he's not going to hear everything Trump says when Trump says it.

Even without the verbiage no one believes Trumps reasoning for not going to the event when the SS let his COS go and a number of other world leaders made it.

[gratuitous]

15. "I didn't hear that" isn't exactly "He didn't say that"

Everything these fuckers say has to be parsed eight ways from Sunday. "I was there" could easily mean, "I was on that trip with the President, but not present when Trump and Kelly were at the gravesite." "I didn't hear that" isn't "Trump didn't say that," but simply that Bolton might have missed it because a plane flew overhead or he was standing too far away to hear it. Or he was distracted by a pretty girl who was walking by, or he was on the phone to Putin discussing bounties on American soldiers.

Bolton clearly means for his comment to be a denial that Trump would ever say such a cruel and heartless thing, and if you take it that way, his work is done. But that comment can be interpreted several ways that range from "I don't know what Trump said" to "Trump totally might have said it based on nothing more than the entirety of his public comments about the military, but I'm too chickenshit to weigh in definitively one way or the other."

[misanthrope]

19. "I didn't hear that" isn't even

"I have a hard time imagining President Trump saying that." It's a denial of witness, not believability.

[Kingofalldems]

17. So you're saying the Fox news, AP and Atlantic Monthly sources are lying?

[flotsam]

18. Hey, you didn't hear it, I didn't hear it

Even Bolton didn't hear it. But not one of us can swear we were with Trump 24/7 that day...

[Cracklin Charlie]

6. Trump IS the source!

Kelly is the victim.

[cwydro]

10. Kelly voluntarily worked for the orange buffoon.

He's no kind of victim. Gimme a break.

[RockRaven]

9. Doesn't the article explicitly say the source is a friend of Kelley's, who he told the story to?

So yeah, of course the ultimate source is Kelley, the article fucking says so. Good detective work, Dumb Donald!

[Wellstone ruled]

12. Got to love the Revenge

of those who were suckered into working for this Criminal. And the Criminal now wants his Vengeance.

Same shit,just a new cast of players.

[underpants]

13. Vindman + I think these were accumulated over time

Trump’s WH is as leaky as the SS Minnow.

I think The Atlantic accumulated these (possibly several news outfits) and then published under the editor in chiefs name to give it more gravitas and credibility.