I haven’t seen anyone else mention this, though I may well have missed something. One often reads that John Bolton is a skilled bureaucratic warrior, but some details of this WP story suggest otherwise.

In addition to being circumvented by R Giuliani multiple times, Bolton apparently got rolled by G Sondland when it came to the 25 July meeting:

When the White House operator patched Trump through to Zelensky on the morning of July 25, it was despite attempts by Bolton to head off a call he worried would be a “disaster.” Bolton had sought to coach Trump earlier that morning, only to learn later that Sondland had secretly arranged a follow-up conversation and gotten the final word.