During his time as defense secretary, Jim Mattis sought to deflect President Trump from what he thought were ill-advised decisions in North Korea or Afghanistan by limiting his options, according to the New Yorker.
On one occasion in 2017, he failed to send officers and planners to take part in a war game in front of Trump at the presidential retreat of Camp David.
“He prevented the thing from happening,” a former senior administration official told the magazine, amid suggestions that the exercise may have increased the likelihood of a strike on the hermit kingdom.
On another occasion, he prevented Gen. John Nicholson, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, from meeting the president.
At times, Mattis’ maneuvering caused tension between Trump and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, whom Trump blamed for blocking him from doing what he wanted, even though the culprit may have been Mattis.
[Related: Mattis returns to West Coast think tank 3 months after leaving Pentagon]
Mattis served as defense secretary until December, when he resigned over policy differences with Trump.
He had previously won praise among independent commentators for a balancing act that saw him keep NATO allies on side without alienating the president, who has been confrontational with the Europeans.
However, he resigned when Trump announced he was going to withdraw all American troops from Syria, alarming other members of the coalition fighting the Islamic State.
The New Yorker piece, a profile of John Bolton, the current national security adviser, showed just how Mattis managed to navigate the demands of the role.
A former national security official told the magazine a strategy evolved to quietly ignore presidential requests.
[Also read: Trump once celebrated ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, now dismisses him as ‘our previous person’]
“The president thinks out loud,” he said. “Do you treat it like an order? Or do you treat it as part of a longer conversation? We treated it as part of a longer conversation.”
The account is the latest example of an internal “resistance” designed to thwart Trump’s ambitions.
An anonymous official wrote in the New York Times last year that a number of appointees believed the president was acting in ways detrimental to “the health of our republic.”
“That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office,” he or she wrote.
