Donald Trump has asked whether his former national security advisor, John Bolton, will be going to jail for releasing his new tell-all book exposing what it was like to work within the Trump administration.
Trump, who previously called the book ‘highly inappropriate’, is said to have casually asked his advisors, ‘Do you think he’s going to go to jail for this?’ as tensions boil over in the days before the controversial memoir is released, the Daily Beast reported.
The president’s inquiry comes as federal prosecutors are said to be weighing up whether to criminally charge Bolton for disclosing classified information within the book, which is titled The Room Where It Happened, due for release June 23.
Though it’s highly unlikely that any prison time will result, that hasn’t stopped the president from denouncing his former aid, calling Bolton a ‘despicable man’ who will be facing some ‘criminal problems’.
‘I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified. If he wrote a book and if the book gets out, he’s broken the law and I would think you would have criminal problems,’ Trump insisted earlier this week.
‘If this guy is writing things about conversations or about anything — and maybe he is not telling the truth. He’s been known not to tell the truth, a lot,’ he continued.
Trump, who previously called the book ‘highly inappropriate’, is said to have casually asked officials within his administration, ‘Do you think he’s going to go to jail for this?’ as tensions boil over in the days before the controversial memoir is released
Bolton’s memoir claims Trump agreed to back off criminal probes as ‘personal favors’ to certain dictators as part of a foreign policy characterized by ‘chaos’ and aimed at the president’s personal benefit
The Room Where It Happened portrays Trump as a president solely motivated by re-election efforts with a penchant for misconduct – including agreeing to back off criminal probes as ‘personal favors’ to certain dictators that make up a foreign policy characterized by ‘chaos’ and aimed at the president’s personal benefit.
Set to be released on June 23, the book also contains a claim that Trump pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to boost U.S. food purchases, describing it in terms of his own election. Trump regularly touts a deal to pause the China trade war as one of his chief accomplishments.
Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who in the book is portrayed by Bolton as being disloyal to and dismissive of the president, has also waded in calling Bolton a ‘traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people.’
The Room Where It Happened portrays Trump as a president solely motivated by re-election efforts with a penchant for misconduct – including agreeing to back off criminal probes as ‘personal favors’ to certain dictators that make up a foreign policy characterized by ‘chaos’ and aimed at the president’s personal benefit
In a bid to prevent some of the allegations made by the 71-year-old from seeing the light of day, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the book from being released in its current form.
That lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Royce Lamberth of the DC District Court on Saturday morning, who ruled the Justice Department’s arguments weren’t enough to block the book’s release.
Lamberth added that the book had already been widely distributed, and could be distributed further on the internet, even if the court said it couldn’t be.
‘For reasons that hardly need to be stated, the Court will not order a nationwide seizure and destruction of a political memoir,’ Lamberth wrote in his ruling. ‘It seems to me, as we used to say in Texas, that the horse is out of the barn.’
In response, Trump fumed on Twitter that Bolton will have a ‘really big price to pay’, and called his former aid a ‘despicable man’ who has broken the law.
‘Wow, I finally agree with failed political consultant Steve Schmidt, who called Wacko John Bolton “a despicable man who failed in his duty to protect America.”’ he tweeted.
‘Also stated that he should never be allowed to serve in government again. So true! Plain and simple, John Bolton, who was all washed up until I brought him back and gave him a chance, broke the law by releasing Classified Information (in massive amounts).’
Trump added that Bolton must pay a ‘very big price’: ‘He must pay a very big price for this, as others have before him. This should never to happen again!!!’
Trump slammed the decision on Twitter branding Bolton a ‘despicable man’ and claimed he was ‘all washed up’ until he ‘brought him back and gave him a chance’
EXPLOSIVE CLAIMS MADE IN THE BOOK:
- Trump agreed to ‘back off’ criminal probes as ‘personal favors’ to dictators
- Told Chinese President Xi Jinping he should go ahead with building camps the regime was constructing for Chinese Uighurs
- Put Jared Kushner in charge of several foreign policy matters
- Spent part of Osaka summit ‘pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win’ reelection by buying US 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
- Defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi to distract attention from Ivanka Trump using her personal email
- Postponed removing the US from the Iran deal so Melania Trump could announce her Be Best campaign
- Claimed he was going to be nominated for a Noble Peace Prize for his North Korea summit
- Said he always broke up with women he dated because he didn’t like being dumped
- Referred to his former UN.Ambassador Nikki Haley as a ‘c***’ while Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump wanted her to replace Mike Pence
Bolton became Trump’s national security adviser in April 2018 and left in September 2019.
Trump claims he fired him but Bolton has said he actually stepped because he clashed with the president on several policy issues, including Iraq, Afghanistan and the Ukraine.
In a September 10 tweet, Trump wrote on Twitter that he had ‘informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House.
‘I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning.’
However, just hours later that same day, Bolton tweeted that he ‘offered to resign last night and President Trump said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”’
Bolton’s memoir claims Trump agreed to back off criminal probes as ‘personal favors’ to certain dictators as part of a foreign policy characterized by ‘chaos’ and aimed at the president’s personal benefit.
Bolton describes a ‘pattern of fundamentally unacceptable behavior that eroded the very legitimacy of the presidency.’
Bolton writes that in cases involving China and Turkey, Trump was willing to ‘in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked.’
‘The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,’ Bolton writes.
Bolton became Trump’s national security adviser in April 2018 and left in September 2019. Trump claims he fired him but Bolton has said he actually stepped because he clashed with the president on several policy issues, including Iraq, Afghanistan and the Ukraine
In the case of China, Bolton describes Trump as begging the leader, with whom he regularly touts his good relationship. Trump was ‘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,’ according to the book.
China agreed to billions in purchases of U.S. agriculture product to end the trade war that began when Trump slapped on tariffs to protest China trade practices.
Trump implored Xi during a one-on-one meeting during their summit in Osaka, according to Bolton.
Xi complained about China critics in the U.S., and Trump immediately assumed he meant Democrats, according to another excerpt that appeared in the Washington Post.
‘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,’ according to Bolton.
‘He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.
Trump cast the deal as a breakthrough when he described it from Osaka.
‘For the time being we won’t be lifting tariffs on China,’ Trump told reporters. ‘We will work with China. They are going to negotiate and start spending money.’
‘Cooperation and dialogue are better than friction and confrontation,’ said Xi, prompting Trump to say: ‘It would be historic if we can do a fair trade deal.’
China had imposed retaliatory tariffs in a way that maximized pressure by focusing on key farm states including Iowa. When the ‘Phase One’ deal was finally inked in January of this year, China agreed to buy $12.5 billion in additional U.S. agriculture products.
Bolton describes a meeting in New Jersey in 2019 where Trump tears into journalists amid his ongoing consternation about leaks and says they should be forced to give up their sources. ‘These people should be executed. They are scumbags,’ Trump said, according to Bolton.
Trump fumed on Twitter that Bolton will have a ‘really big price to pay’, and called his former aid a ‘despicable man’ who has broken the law
In another episode, Bolton writes, Russian President in May last year compared Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to Hillary Clinton in a gambit to win Trump over. The U.S. recognized Guaido as the legitimate leader amid protests to the rule of Nicolas Maduro.
Bolton called it a ‘brilliant display of Soviet style propaganda’ to boost Maduro that ‘largely persuaded Trump.’
‘I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,’ Bolton writes.
Trump also believed that Finland was a part of Russia, according to the book.
Trump also told Xi: ‘You’re the greatest Chinese leader in 300 years.’ Then later, in a nation that still reveres Mao Tse Tung, Trump called him ‘the greatest leader in Chinese history.’
One passage depicts Trump showing contempt for a persecuted religious minority that U.S. policy seeks to protect by calling out repression of mostly Muslim Uighurs.’
‘Trump asked me at the 2018 White House Christmas dinner why we were considering sanctioning China over its treatment of the Uighurs, a largely Muslim people who live primarily in China’s northwest Xinjiang Province,’ Bolton writes.
‘At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang,’ he continued.
‘According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council’s top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.’