Donald Trump calls John Bolton a 'liar' - but fails to deny he lifted sanctions to please China's Xi and demands to see 'he's full of s***' note Pompeo sent about him - as DoJ seeks emergency order to block publication of his book
Donald Trump on Wednesday called John Bolton 'a liar and washed up guy', accusing his former adviser of 'breaking the law' with his bombshell book.
The president told Sean Hannity the information in Bolton's tell-all memoir is 'highly classified'. The Department of Justice on Wednesday evening sought an emergency order to block its publication, The Washington Post reports.
Bolton's 577-page book paints an unvarnished portrait of Trump and his administration, amounting to the most vivid, first-person account yet of how Trump conducts himself in office.
Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News Wednesday Trump said: 'He (Bolton) broke the law. He was a washed up guy and I gave him a chance and I wasn't very enamored.'
Bolton claims Trump 'pleaded' with China's Xi Jinping during a 2019 summit to help his reelection prospects. He also accuses the president of being driven by political calculations when making national security decisions.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal the president did not deny Bolton's claims he lifted sanctions to please China's Xi. But he did tell Hannity: 'Nobody has been tougher' on Russia and China than him.
Demanding to see the 'he's full of s***' note Bolton says Pompeo sent, Trump said: 'He (Bolton) is a liar. Everybody in the White House hated John Bolton.
'He wasn't liked at all, and wasn't respected very much. And as we got to know him, he was respected less and less. Personally, I thought he was crazy.'
Donald Trump on Wednesday called John Bolton 'a washed up guy' who he 'gave a chance', accusing his former adviser of 'breaking the law' with his bombshell book
The president told Sean Hannity the information in Bolton's tell-all memoir is 'highly classified'. The Department of Justice on Wednesday sought an emergency order to block its publication
John Bolton (left), President Trump's former national security adviser, sat down for his first interview about his blockbuster book with ABC News' Martha Raddatz (right). The interview will be a primetime Sunday night special, the network announced Monday
The White House worked furiously to block the book, asking a federal court for an emergency temporary restraining order Wednesday against its release.
Bolton's allegations that Trump solicited Chinese help for his reelection effort carried echoes of Trump's attempt to get political help from Ukraine, which led to his impeachment.
'I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn't driven by re-election calculations,' Bolton wrote.
But the president hit back Wednesday, telling Hannity: 'This is highly classified information and he did not have approval. Nobody has been tough like me.'
'He went into the Middle East. He was one of the big guns for, 'Let's go into Iraq,' and that didn't work out too well.
'He broke the law, very simple. I mean, as much as it's going to be broke. This is highly classified. That's the highest stage. It's highly classified information and he did not have approval. That's come out now very loud and very strong.'
He later tweeted: 'Wacko John Bolton's 'exceedingly tedious' (New York Times) book is made up of lies & fake stories. A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!'
The book largely characterizes Trump's staff as knowing better than the president and talking behind his back, like the time Bolton was passed a note by Pompeo amid the June 2018 Singapore summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
'He is so full of s***,' the note read, Bolton wrote.
Trump said Wednesday: 'I would doubt that. Does he have the note? Let me see the note.'
Bolton, Trump's national security adviser for a 17-month period, called Trump's attempt to shift the June 2019 conversation with Xi to the U.S. election a stunning move, and wrote that it was among innumerable conversations that he found concerning.
He added that Congress should have expanded the scope of its impeachment inquiry to these other incidents.
Deeply critical of the president and much of his senior team, Bolton wrote that because staff had served him so poorly, Trump 'saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government.'
He added that while he was at the White House, Trump typically had only two intelligence briefings a week 'and in most of those, he spoke at greater length than the briefers, often on matters completely unrelated to the subjects at hand.'
The book also includes embarrassing claims that Trump thought Finland was part of Russia, didn't know that the United Kingdom was a nuclear power and called reporters 'scumbags' who should be 'executed.'
As for the meeting with the Chinese president in Osaka, Japan, Bolton wrote that Trump told Xi that Democrats were hostile to China.
'He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win,' Bolton said.
'He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.'
Bolton's 577-page book paints an unvarnished portrait of Trump and his administration, amounting to the most vivid, first-person account yet of how Trump conducts himself in office
Bolton wrote that he would print Trump's exact words, 'but the government's pre-publication review process has decided otherwise.'
The book, titled 'The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,' is set to be released Tuesday by Simon & Schuster. It has been the subject of a lengthy battle between Bolton and the White House.
The Justice Department filed suit Tuesday in an effort to delay publication of the book, claiming it still contained highly classified information and that a required review by the National Security Council had not been concluded.
According to the filing, a career official determined no classified material remained in April, but national security adviser Robert O'Brien initiated a secondary review that deemed additional information to be classified.
The White House's contention that so much of the book was classified appeared to be a tacit admission that many of Bolton's allegations were accurate — as inaccurate information could not be classified.
Bolton wrote that, due to the review process, he made 'numerous changes to the manuscript in order to obtain clearance to publish, the vast bulk of which, in my view, did not change the facts set forth.'
He said in some cases he was asked to add phrases like, 'in my view,' to make it clear he was expressing his opinion instead of relying on sensitive information.
In others, he was asked to describe things more generally. He was asked to remove quotation marks nearly every time he recounts conversation between Trump and foreign leaders and himself and foreign leaders.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Wednesday that he attended a meeting between Trump and Xi at the Group of 20 nations in Osaka, but he never heard Trump pleading with Xi to buy more agriculture products to ensure he would win reelection. Lighthizer spoke at a Senate hearing on trade issues and was asked about Bolton's recollection of events.
'Absolutely untrue. Never happened. I was there. I have no recollection of that ever happening. I don't believe it's true. I don't believe it ever happened,' Lighthizer said. 'Would I recollect something as crazy as that? Of course, I would recollect it.'
Bolton wrote that he raised some of his concerns about Trump's conversations with foreign leaders with Attorney General William Barr, and flagged similar worries with White House attorneys and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
'The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't accept,' he wrote.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec denied in a statement that Barr had ever expressed that Trump's conversations with foreign leaders were improper.
Trump continually pandered to Xi, Bolton wrote. At a White House Christmas dinner in 2018, Bolton said Trump asked why the U.S. was sanctioning China over its treatment of Uighurs.
China suspects Uighurs, who are predominantly Muslim and culturally and ethnically distinct from the majority Han Chinese population, of harboring separatist tendencies.
Trump pleaded in Osaka with China's President Xi Jinping to buy U.S. agriculture products, describing the pitch in electoral terms, Bolton writes
China agreed to buy $12.5 billion in U.S. agriculture products to halt a trade war, in a move seen as a boon to Trump in farm state battlegrounds like Iowa
In recent years, China has dramatically escalated its campaign against them by detaining more than 1 million people in internment camps and prisons, which it calls vocational training centers.
'At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting, with only interpreters present, Xi explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang,' Bolton wrote.
'According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which he thought was exactly the right thing to do. '
Bolton's claim that Trump was appealing to China to assist his reelection effort comes as the president's rhetoric toward the U.S. geopolitical rival has grown more acerbic in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
But it may undercut the Trump reelection campaign's efforts, evidenced in recent television ads and public statements to paint presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden as soft on China.
Trump pictured with then National Security Advisor John Bolton in June 2018
In the book, Bolton describes every Trump decision as being guided by concerns for his own reelection, a claim that evokes the scandal that sparked Trump's impeachment last year.
The book alleges that Trump directly tied providing military aid to Ukraine to the country's willingness to conduct investigations into the Bidens.
In one conversation, Trump said 'he wasn't in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over,' Bolton writes.
Trump's decision to withhold military assistance to Ukraine until it agreed to investigate Biden led the House to charge Trump was abusing his power.
The aid was ultimately released once the hold-up became public. The GOP-controlled Senate ultimately acquitted the president on that count and a count of obstructing Congress' investigation of the incident.
Bolton was called to testify before House lawmakers conducting the impeachment inquiry, but he declined, suggesting he wanted a federal court to decide whether he should heed a White House directive not to cooperate with the inquiry.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the specifics in Bolton's book, but emailed reporters past quotes of Democratic lawmakers impugning the former Trump aide's credibility.
In advance of the public reports about the details, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the book was 'full of classified information, which is inexcusable.'
Donald Trump calls John Bolton a 'liar' - but fails to deny he lifted sanctions to please China's Xi and demands to see 'he's full of s***' note Pompeo sent about him - as DoJ seeks emergency order to block publication of his book
![Donald Trump calls John Bolton a 'liar' - but fails to deny he lifted sanctions to please China's Xi and demands to see 'he's full of s***' note Pompeo sent about him - as DoJ seeks emergency order to block publication of his book]()
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June 18, 2020
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