John Bolton chose not to brief Trump on Russia Havana syndrome suspicion

Bolton makes the startling admission in an interview for an episode of a podcast, The Sound: Mystery of Havana Syndrome, hosted by the former Guardian journalist Nicky Woolf and released on Monday.

Mueller issued his report in April 2019. He did not prove collusion between Trump and Moscow in his 2016 election victory over Hillary Clinton but the former FBI director did secure indictments of figures close to Trump and lay out extensive evidence of possible obstruction of justice.

Trump angrily rejected allegations of wrongdoing and claimed to be the victim of a witch-hunt. But he also closely courted Vladimir Putin, even seeming, in Helsinki in July 2018, to side with the Russian president against his own intelligence agencies.

Nonetheless, he said, he decided not to take that suspicion to Trump.

Speaking to The Sound, Bolton suggested the decision not to brief Trump about suspicions about Russia damaged attempts to investigate the Havana syndrome mystery.