President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton alleges in a new book that Mr. Trump pushed Chinese President Xi Jinping in trade negotiations to agree to purchase American agricultural products in order to boost Mr. Trump’s political standing with U.S. farmers and help him win reelection.
In an excerpt of Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” published by The Wall Street Journal, Bolton condemns what he calls the “incoherence” of the president’s trade policy and his focus on winning a second term. The excerpt was published minutes after stories about the memoir’s contents appeared in The New York Times and Washington Post, both of which said they had obtained copies of the book ahead of its scheduled June 23 release.
The longtime conservative foreign policy hawk describes a meeting with Xi and Mr. Trump on June 29, 2019, in Osaka, Japan. Bolton says Xi told Mr. Trump “that some (unnamed) American political figures were making erroneous judgments by calling for a new cold war with China.”Get Breaking News Delivered to Your Inbox
“Whether Xi meant to finger the Democrats or some of us sitting on the U.S. side of the table, I don’t know, but Trump immediately assumed that Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility to China among the Democrats,” Bolton writes.
“Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome,” Bolton continues.
Bolton writes that he was prevented from reprinting Mr. Trump’s exact language due to the administration’s review of the book, meant to ensure that no classified information was included.
“I would print Trump’s exact words, but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise,” Bolton writes. The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against Bolton, who resigned as national security adviser in December 2019, arguing the book contained classified material and should not be published.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department filed a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to halt the publication of the book. “Disclosure of the manuscript will damage the national security of the United States,” the DOJ said in the application.
The memoir’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, a division of ViacomCBS, said in a statement that the filing “is a frivolous, politically motivated exercise in futility. Hundreds of thousands of copies of (the book) have already been distributed around the country and the world. The injunction as requested by the government would accomplish nothing.”
The book includes assertions that Mr. Trump thought Finland was part of Russia and didn’t know the United Kingdom is a nuclear power. Bolton also claims the president called journalists “scumbags” who should be “executed.”
The president took to Twitter early Thursday, calling Bolton “incompetent.” He said, “Wacko John Bolton’s “exceedingly tedious”(New York Times) book is made up of lies & fake stories. Said all good about me, in print, until the day I fired him. A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!”
Wednesday night, Mr. Trump said on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” that releasing the book means Bolton broke the law. “Very simple. I mean, as much as it’s going to be broken. It’s highly classified information, and he did not have approval,” Mr. Trump said.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Wednesday evening, the president called Bolton “a liar” and said “everybody in the White House hated” Bolton. He also denied Bolton’s claim that, as the Journal puts it, he “gave his blessing” to Xi to build detention camps for China’s Uighur Muslims. The Journal says a Bolton spokeswoman declined to comment.
According to the excerpt in the Journal, Bolton says in the book that “Trump’s conversations with Xi reflected not only the incoherence in his trade policy but also the confluence in Trump’s mind of his own political interests and U.S. national interests.”
“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” Bolton writes.
However, he also condemns House Democrats for their handling of the impeachment inquiry late last year, accusing them of being too narrowly focused on Mr. Trump’s dealings with the Ukrainian president. Mr. Trump was impeached on counts of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December, although he was acquitted of both in February.
“Had Democratic impeachment advocates not been so obsessed with their Ukraine blitzkrieg in 2019, had they taken the time to inquire more systematically about Trump’s behavior across his entire foreign policy, the impeachment outcome might well have been different,” Bolton writes. Democrats argued that Mr. Trump abused his power by asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden, a political rival, and his son.
Bolton refused to testify as part of the House inquiry, and was not called to testify at the subsequent impeachment trial. Democrats have accused him of cynically withholding pertinent knowledge of the president’s actions to boost his book sales.
“I have seen the reports that John Bolton is claiming the House should have impeached Trump for other matters. Well, thank you John Bolton for being the firefighter that shows up to the building that’s already burned with the fire hose and saying, ‘I’m here to help,'” Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
The White House disseminated talking points to allies Wednesday that emphasized they believe Bolton is breaking the law and just trying to make money, but did not refute any specific claims of presidential behavior as have been reported.
Bolton is a rat!
what is bolton on drugs or booze
If he’s guilty of SEDITION and TREASON, LOCK him up in FEDERAL PRISON with a STIFF PENALTY. One Disgusted Patriot. Team Trump and his allies 2020.
Well I really don’t believe anything that John Bolton is saying, this is all to convenient for the Democrats publishing a book with this kind of information like 5 months before a presidential election. It’s just to hard to believe all of these accusations at this time, the Democrats hate Trump so darn bad they would do or say anything to get his supporters to turn on our President. We all know that all politicians are crooked some are just worst than other’s, but I do not believe all of this information is true about our great President
The President can’t say a damn thing without some idiot trying to turn it into a conspiracy or trying to spin his remarks or actions into something criminal.
For God’s sake, Obama was caught making secret deals right under our noses. But that’s okay because that big eared, silly grinning, stupid fool was the liberal’s chosen court jester. It was okay for him to position himself for re-election as well as previous Democrats, but a Republican demonstrates the slightest concern for their reputation or popularity and suddenly they’re targeted as bad guys.
The main reason liberals/Democrats fail is because all they care about is their popularity with the public hoping to collect more supporters and thus more votes. Look at the protests. Citizens hurt by clueless punks and thugs and they excuse their actions while they condemn those who decide to defend themselves or take a stand against them.
It is Apparent that Bolton is full of Crap. He is Obviously a disgruntled ex -staff member that is lashing out. It’s good that he’s no longer in any government position.
So are we to believe President Trump who has been pushing to bring business back to America from China is asking China for help? The only people who would swallow that bait are the Russian collusion bunch. Sounds like more fodder for Michael Moore. What is that they say about a woman scorned? John Bolton is just capitalizing on the gullibility of the left. Tired of the stupidity of the left? Vote Trump/Pence this fall and let’s take back the House and Senate! MAGA 2020!
John Bolton is for John Bolton. Liken him to the kid in the park, If you don’t play by the rules I set, I am going home. To publish this book, to take down a former employer shows his immaturity and self serving greed for attention and money.
Well he just might have had conversations with the chinese before their bio-weapon CCP-19 VIRUS, but bolton you had no business, putting that in your book, because like you it was taken out of notext, as you are a broken wimpy ass loser, that did not get his way, and got fired for not being what you claimed to be when you were hired. You turned on your boss. You deserved to be FIRED, and I hope you get putting jail for being a TRAITOR
The cowardly republicans in the senate should have followed the congress and removed the corrupt and lawless trump than and the country would today be much better off. But money and power even corrupted the republican senators. They feared for their future
I can’t believe anyone with a brain believes Bolton. He’s just a nasty old man who didn’t get his way.
I do have a question not related to Bolton..I was told that Trump has allowed arsenic traps to be used to supposedly kill the bears in the northern states and it has , instead, kills all the others who eat the trap food. and that is why she will not vote for Trump-because he kills animals????>>>>>…I’ve never heard of these traps before.
bolton is nothing but a piece of schiff
Bo how old are you
what a stupid ahole bolton is-
everyone knows that Biden is in with the chinese-
and this virus is their way of helping the democrats
bo–
your family should have had a lifeguard on their gene pool -it has been infected with stupid and you are the proof
bolton is a lying low life opportunist and will say anything in order to sell his book and try to make himself seem like he is important-
bo–you obviously raised your own dope–you
bo–the corruption is being shown as the democrats choice –
bolton –really idiotic statements in his book–
saying a politician makes their moves calculated on their next election to be re-elected is like saying the sun will come up tomorrow-or night follows day–
way to go john-now gather your crayons the white coats will be there soon to collect you