Trump says Bolton ‘broke the law’ as DoJ seeks emergency order to block his book’s publication

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.’ 

According to just some of Bolton’s revelations:

• Trump agreed to ‘back off’ criminal probes as ‘personal favors’ to dictators;
• Told Chinese President Xi Jinping should go ahead with building camps the regime was constructing for Chinese Uighurs;
• Spent part of Osaka summit ‘pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win’ reelection buy buying U.S. crops’ 
• Believed Finland was part of Russia;
• Said invading Venezuala was ‘cool’ and said the nation was ‘really part of the United States’
• Made it a ‘high priority’ to get Mike Pompeo to hand a copy of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ to North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un; 
• Did not know Great Britain was a nuclear power; and
• Defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi to distract attention from Ivanka Trump using personal email. 

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.’  

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 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. 

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.

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.’

Mike Pompeo mocked Donald Trump behind his back by slipping John Bolton a note saying ‘he is so full of s***’ – and Bill Barr said he was ‘worried’ about his conduct bombshell book claims

• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mocked President Trump behind his back, while Attorney General Bill Barr expressed concerns, according to John Bolton 
• The Washington Post and New York Times obtained copies of Bolton’s forthcoming book, ‘The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir’ 
• The book will be released next Tuesday and largely characterizes Trump’s staff as knowing better than the president and talking behind his back 
• Bolton described Pompeo as writing a note to him amid the 2018 Singapore summit, saying of Trump, ‘He is so full of s***’ 
• Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, said Trump was ‘stunningly uninformed’ and was always looking for a way to show ‘reality TV showmanship’  

ByNikki Schwab, Senior U.s. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mocked President Trump behind his back and Attorney General Bill Barr shared his concerns, according to the blockbuster book by former National Security Advisor John Bolton. 

On Wednesday, both The New York Times and The Washington Post obtained copies of the tome, ‘The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,’ which the Trump administration had tried to block from bookstores with a week to go before its release, filing a Tuesday lawsuit. 

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. 

In public, Pompeo has portrayed himself as the loyal servant – as has Barr. In private, when Bolton approached Barr to discuss the president’s behavior – especially toward autocratic rulers like China’s President Xi Jinping and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – the attorney general admitted he, too, was worried.  

The takeaway from Bolton’s book was that Trump, despite trying to convey strength, was a shallow, paranoid and indecisive leader. 

‘He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government,’ Bolton wrote. 

Trump led using ‘personal instinct,’ Bolton went on, and looked for opportunities for ‘reality TV showmanship.’ 

Bolton, the president’s third national security adviser, pointed to the president’s diplomacy with North Korea as a prime example. 

Bolton, who had worked for President Reagan and in both Bush administrations, called Trump’s first meeting with Kim in Singapore ‘an exercise in publicity.’ 

‘Trump told … me he was prepared to sign a substance-free communique, have his press conference to declare victory and then get out of town,’ Bolton wrote. 

Behind-the-scenes, Bolton captures Pompeo being appalled. 

He described a call between Trump and the president of South Korea as they prepared for the June 2018 summit. 

Both Bolton and Pompeo, according to Bolton, were upset with how Trump handled the conversation. 

Pompeo, Bolton described, said he was ‘having a cardia in Saudi Arabia,’ as he was listening to the call while traveling in the Middle East. 

Bolton, likewise, said the call was a ‘near death experience.’ 

After the summit, Bolton claimed Trump became transfixed with getting Kim a copy of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ CD, signed by the artist. 

Prior to their first meeting, Trump had called Kim ‘Little Rocket Man,’ when the North Korean leader would conduct unsanctioned nuclear experiments.  

Bolton criticized Trump for not being able to grasp that Pompeo wouldn’t be meeting with Kim during every trip he made to North Korea. 

After one Kim-less trip, Bolton recalled Trump asking Pompeo if he’d handed the North Korean leader the CD. 

‘Pompeo had not,’ Bolton wrote. ‘Getting this CD to Kim remained a high priority for several months.’ 

Donald Trump defended Saudi’s Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to keep the spotlight off revelation Ivanka was using private email account, John Bolton claims

• President Trump backed Saudi’s Crown Prince in the aftermath of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder to distract reporters from covering Ivanka Trump 
• Former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s new book said Trump put out an exclamation mark-filled statement to ‘divert from Ivanka’ 
• The president purposely pushed back on the CIA’s assessment that Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s assassination 
• The day before, Ivanka Trump was in the news for using a private email account for government business, which was Trump’s attack line against Hillary Clinton
• ‘If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing,’ Bolton quoted Trump saying in his memoir, ‘The Room Where It Happened’   

ByGeoff Earle, Deputy U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com

President Trump backed Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the aftermath of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder to distract reporters from covering Ivanka Trump‘s use of a private email server, a new book claims. 

Early copies of John Bolton’s ‘The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,’ were obtained Wednesday by The New York Times and The Washington Post. 

In the book, Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, suggested that some of the president’s more erratic behavior was designed to serve as a diversion. 

Bolton recalled the November 2018 controversy over Khashoggi’s death. 

Khashoggi was a Washington Post op-ed writer and a resident of the U.S. 

He also was a critic of the Saudi regime.  

He went missing after walking into the Saudi consulate in Turkey on October 2. 

A month later, the CIA determined that the Crown Prince, who has a close relationship with White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, had given the order for Khashoggi’s assassination. 

On November 20, the president read an exclamation-mark-filled statement essentially letting the Crown Prince off the hook. 

‘Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!’ Trump had said. 

‘That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi,’ Trump continued. ‘In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.’ 

Behind-the-scenes, Bolton wrote, Trump decided to issue the statement because on November 19 the story broke that first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails to government officials using a personal email account. 

Government officials are supposed to use government email accounts for government business, so the messages can be archived and proper security measures are in place.  

‘This will divert from Ivanka,’ Trump said of the statement, according to Bolton’s book. ‘If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing.’   

Ivanka’s use of a private email account looked hypocritical after Trump paid great attention to rival Hillary Clinton’s use of her private email server during her tenure as President Obama’s secretary of state.  

Donald Trump said invading Venezuela would be ‘cool’ and it was ‘really part of the U.S.,’ thought Finland was in Russia and didn’t know Britain had nuclear weapons, John Bolton’s book reveals

• John Bolton’s new book contains a number of anecdotes in which President Trump is caught not knowing basic information about American foreign policy 
• Bolton describes Trump not knowing that Britain, one of the U.S.’s closet allies, was a nuclear power 
• The former national security adviser also said that the president once asked former Chief of Staff John Kelly if Finland was a part of Russia 
• Bolton said Russian President Vladimir Putin was able to change Trump’s mind on Venezuela by equating opposition leader Juan Guaidó to Hillary Clinton

ByGeoff Earle, Deputy U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com

President Trump didn’t know Britain – one of America’s closest allies – was a nuclear power; thought it would be ‘cool’ to invade Venezuela, and thought Finland was in Russia, a new book says. 

The book, ‘The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,’ was written by Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who left the administration in September. 

Details on Trump’s ability to handle foreign affairs were revealed in the 592-page tome, which was first obtained by The New York Times and The Washington Post on Wednesday.  

The book is expected to hit bookshelves Tuesday.  

Bolton’s book contains numerous private conversations Trump had about other world leaders that showed his knowledge of them and foreign policy was limited.

Trump asked his then-Chief of Staff John Kelly if Finland was a part of Russia, The Washington Post notes.

And in a meeting with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, a British official referred to the UK as a ‘nuclear power,’ and Trump interjected: ‘Oh, are you a nuclear power?’

Britain has long been a nuclear power and Bolton writes he could tell the president’s question ‘was not intended as a joke.’

Trump also said invading Venezuela would be ‘cool’ and argued that the South American nation was ‘really part of the United States.’ 

Bolton also reveals how Russian President Vladimir Putin manipulated Trump to his point of view. 

He recalled a May 2019 phone call where Putin compared Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 rival.

Bolton called it a ‘brilliant display of Soviet style proganda’ to shore up support for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. 

Putin’s claims, Bolton writes, ‘largely persuaded Trump.’

While much of Bolton’s book focuses on foreign policy, which is the aide’s forte, he more broadly characterized the president has someone who didn’t know a lot and wasn’t learning. 

‘He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government,’ Bolton wrote about what he witnessed during his tenure, which was over in September 2019. 

Trump, he said, led by ‘personal instinct,’ and went looking for opportunities to show off his ‘reality TV showmanship.’