Ex-Bush adviser Paul Wolfowitz slams Trump, may back Clinton

BERLIN, Germany — Leading neo-conservative Paul Wolfowitz said he would not back Donald Trump for US president and might vote for Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton instead, in an interview published Friday.

Wolfowitz, a top advisor to George W. Bush during his presidency and vociferous champion of the “preemptive war” in Iraq, told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that he saw Trump as a security risk.

“I wish there were somebody I could be comfortable voting for,” said Wolfowitz, also a former World Bank chief.

“I might have to vote for Hillary Clinton, even though I have big reservations about her.”

Wolfowitz, 72, criticized Trump for saying he admired Russian President Vladimir Putin and was impressed by the Chinese in economic affairs.

“That is pretty disturbing,” Wolfowitz said. “It’s important to speak up and say how unacceptable he is.”

Wolfowitz joined a chorus of “neocons” in distancing themselves from the Republicans’ current nominee. During the primaries he had advised Bush’s brother Jeb, a former Florida governor.

“Dump Trump” calls have continued since the 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney trashed the brash real estate mogul’s candidacy early this year, leading to a trickle of defections to Clinton’s camp.

This month more than 70 influential Republicans signed a letter urging the party to stop spending money on Trump’s presidential campaign and direct it instead to November’s congressional races.

In the letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, they said Trump’s “divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity” risked turning the election into a “Democratic landslide.”