Hill says Bolton suggested Giuliani’s actions would ‘come back to haunt us’

Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia, testified Thursday during the impeachment inquiry that former national security adviser John Bolton suggested to her that Rudy Giuliani was saying and doing “explosive” things that would “come back to haunt us.”

Hill said Bolton described Giuliani as “a hand grenade” who would “blow everyone up,” confirming previous reports about the former national security adviser’s comments about President Trump’s personal lawyer. She said that his comments about Giuliani were made in relation to what Hill described as a “smear campaign” launched against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.{mosads}

Asked to clarify what she thought Giuliani meant, Hill said, “I think he meant that obviously what Mr. Giuliani was saying was pretty explosive in any case, he was frequently on television making quite incendiary remarks about everyone involved in this, and that he was clearly pushing forward issues and ideas that would probably come back to haunt us, and in fact that is where we are today.”

In response to Hill’s concerns against the attacks on Yovanovitch, she testified that Bolton “looked pained, basically indicated with body language that there was nothing much we could do about it, and he then in the course of that discussion said that Rudy Giuliani was a hand grenade who was going to blow everyone up.”

When Goldman asked her if she understood what Bolton meant by this, Hill said that she did.

Yovanovitch testified last week that she was a subject of a “smear campaign” to force her out of her position as ambassador to Ukraine and that she felt “kneecapped” in her ability to do her job due to this campaign.