As ambassador, Mr. Johnson has had to navigate Mr. Trump’s up-and-down relations with British leaders. The president soured on the key minister at the time, Theresa May well, and berated her on trans-Atlantic mobile phone phone calls. His relations with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a like-minded populist, have been warmer, even though Mr. Johnson has from time to time steered very clear of Mr. Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Britain.
A notable Republican donor, Mr. Johnson initially supported Jeb Bush for the Republican nomination in 2016, but he afterwards backed Mr. Trump, introducing him to other figures in the party’s cash circles. Enlisting Mr. Johnson as an emissary on behalf of his golf training course was one more way the president was seeking for help furthering his monetary pursuits.
Past the legal and moral red flags, asking for this kind of a favor from his host state would place Mr. Johnson in an untenable position as the emissary of the United States.
“It is diplomatic malpractice mainly because once you do that, you place your self in a compromised position,” reported Norman L. Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama’s exclusive counsel for ethics and afterwards as his ambassador to the Czech Republic. “They can always say, ‘Remember that time when you designed that suggestion.’ No seasoned diplomat would do that.”
For Mr. Johnson, 73, London was a reward fit for the billionaire heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Formally identified as the Courtroom of St. James’s, the assignment is the plum of the diplomatic corps — a single that will come with a palatial home, Winfield Home, and entree to the maximum amounts of British culture.
Like many political appointees, Mr. Johnson had no diplomatic encounter just before arriving in London. Affable and very well related, he is recognised mostly for the nickname Woody and his possession of the New York Jets, a perennially battling N.F.L. franchise. His changeover to main a massive embassy was bumpy.
Mr. Johnson’s throwback fashion has been criticized as offensive. There have been issues that he complimented the appearances of woman staff throughout employees conferences, and right after interviewing a prospect to change Mr. Lukens as deputy main of mission, he questioned a colleague regardless of whether she was Jewish.
