Trump Sacks National Security Adviser John Bolton
"I
informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the
White House," he wrote.
"I
disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions," Mr Trump wrote, adding
that a new national security adviser would be appointed next week.
The
firing comes amid reports of divisions in the Trump cabinet over a cancelled
peace plan to invite the Taliban to the US.
Mr
Bolton, who had served since April 2018, was Mr Trump's third national security
adviser after Michael Flynn and HR McMaster.
White
House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told reporters: "[The president]
didn't like a lot of his policies, they disagree."
In
response, Mr Bolton tweeted that he had offered his resignation on Monday
night.
According to a White
House schedule, Mr Bolton had been due to host a White House briefing with
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin just over
two hours before Mr Trump tweeted that the national security adviser had been
fired.
Sources
said that the National Security Council, which advises the president, had
become a separate entity within the White House under Mr Bolton.
A
former senior Trump administration official, who wished to remain anonymous,
told the BBC: "He [Bolton] operates separately from the rest of the White
House.
According
to the official, Bolton did not attend meetings, and followed his own
initiatives.
"He's
running his own show," said the official.
A
White House official told the BBC's US partner, CBS News. "Bolton has his
priorities. He didn't ask the president 'What are your priorities.' They're
Bolton's priorities."
Mr
Bolton had opposed peace talks with the Taliban, which Mr Trump scrapped at the
weekend after inviting the group to the US.
Mr
Trump's policy drew criticism especially because of its timing, close to the
anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda, a group that the
Taliban had hosted in Afghanistan.
On Monday, Mr Trump
announced that peace talks with the Taliban were "dead" due to a
deadly car bomb attack by the group which killed one American soldier and 11
others.
According
to Foreign Policy magazine, Mr Bolton had argued that inviting a US-designated
terror group to Camp David - the presidential retreat outside Washington -
would "set a terrible precedent".
His
opposition led to a growing rift with the secretary of state, who appeared on
five separate news programmes on Sunday to defend Mr Trump's outreach to the
Taliban.
"If
you're going to negotiate peace, you often have to deal with some pretty bad
actors," Mr Pompeo told ABC.
FROM bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-
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