U.S. President Donald Trump wanted to get his apparent problem with Crypto Trader off Twitter and up to the regulatory level, according to former national security consultant John Bolton.

A June 18 Forbes article on Bolton’s new book, The Room Where It Happened, reveals that Bolton heard Trump tell Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to go after Bitcoin. The conversation between Trump and Mnuchin was about trade sanctions and tariffs against China in May 2018.

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This isn’t the first time Trump has expressed his aversion to cryptomonry. He gave a speech on Twitter in July 2019, in which he said Bitcoin (BTC) „wasn’t money“ and „wasn’t based on anything. He continued to attack the Libra token on Facebook for having „little position or reliability“.

Supporting Trump
The Secretary of the Treasury supported Trump’s position in the media after the July 2019 tweets, saying that the White House was „looking at all the crypto currencies“ and then claiming that BTC and other crypto currencies are used for money laundering more often than money.

In February of this year, Mnuchin told a hearing that he would announce some „important new requirements“ for crypto currencies with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, alluding to increased federal government oversight to prevent money laundering.

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An „undercover“ pro-bitcoin
But Trump has also made some decisions that may have benefited cryptomoney after Bolton’s alleged conversation. The president appointed Mick Mulvaney as White House chief of staff in October 2018. Mulvaney is pro-Bitcoin and called the BTC a currency that „cannot be manipulated by any government.