Alarmed Anti-Trump Republicans Sped Up Foreign Policy Letter
Plans to publish a letter by 50 former Republican national security officials criticizing Donald Trump were accelerated after a series of comments by the candidate in July sent alarm through much of the party’s foreign policy establishment.
Former State Department legal adviser John Bellinger III, who served under President George W. Bush and organized the letter, said the missive was first targeted for September. That changed after Trump’s attacks on the parents of a Muslim American Army captain killed in Iraq, his challenge to Russia to find deleted Hillary Clinton e-mails, his questioning of NATO’s collective defense commitment and his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“People were just wringing their hands grousing at cocktail parties or occasionally making their own commentary,” Bellinger said in an interview about the origin of the letter released this week. And then “we had the series of outrageous Trump statements all cascading in July.”
The letter was published as Clinton’s campaign accelerated efforts to recruit prominent Republicans who may be primed to defect and support her after Trump’s rhetorical missteps and continued intra-party feuding.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-10/alarmed-anti-trump-republicans-sped-up-foreign-policy-letter
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