President Trump Calls John Bolton 'Dumb,' James Comey, Others 'Dirty Cops'

President Trump tore into the intelligence community Tuesday, calling former national security adviser and U.N. Ambassador John Bolton “one of the dumbest people I’ve met” and other intelligence figures liars and “dirty cops.”

Trump has had a scratchy relationship with intelligence officials ever since he rejected an assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election just days into his presidency.

“John Bolton, one of the dumbest people I’ve met in government and sadly, I’ve met plenty, states often that I respected, and even trusted, Vladimir Putin of Russia more than those in our intelligence agencies,” Trump tweeted.

He added most people would feel the same way if the first intelligence officials they met were “dirty cops who have now proven to be sleazebags at the highest level like James Comey, proven liar James Clapper and, perhaps the lowest of them all, Wacko John Brennan who headed the CIA, you could perhaps understand my reluctance to embrace!”

Bolton, a neoconservative and hawk who had a long career in foreign policy stretching back to the Reagan administration, and Comey both have written books highly critical of Trump and his handling of national security matters. Comey, the former director of the FBI, also accused Trump of having tried to pressure him to declare loyalty while Bolton confirmed the allegations in the House impeachment resolution.

Following discussions with Putin in 2017 and 2018, Trump told reporters he believed Putin when the latter denied Moscow tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. An investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller found, however, the interference was orchestrated by Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

More recently, Trump played down the credibility of reports of Russia paying bounties to Taliban insurgents to kill American troops in Afghanistan.

Trump characterized books critical of him as “garbage,” praising a tome penned by Madeleine Westerhout, former director of Oval Office Operations, that cast him in a more positive light.

Westerhout was fired last year after making critical, off-the-record remarks about the president’s daughters to reporters, saying she had a better relationship with the president than Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump, Politico reported. She also allegedly said Trump could not pick his younger daughter out of a crowd.

Trump’s tweets followed an appearance by Westerhout on Fox News Tuesday.

“So, you know what? I had a bad night. And a major lapse of judgment cost me my dream job. On a rare day off, after a couple of drinks by the pool, I accepted an invitation to an off-the-record dinner with four reporters and a White House colleague of mine,” Westerhout said.

“And at that dinner, I said some things that I didn’t mean and that I never should have said,” she continued. “And I deeply regret that, but I take full responsibility for my actions that night and really regret that I hurt people that I care about very, very much.”