Bolton book leak boosts orders

Calls increase for him to testify

WASHINGTON — News of John Bolton’s book manuscript about his time as President Trump’s national security adviser, leaked to the New York Times, is fueling a Democratic push to have Bolton testify at Trump’s impeachment trial.

The book contains an account of an August conversation in which Bolton says Trump told him that he wanted to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid from Ukraine until it helped him with investigations into political rival Joe Biden.

The account gave Democrats new fuel in their pursuit of sworn testimony from Bolton and other witnesses, a question expected to be taken up later this week by the Republican-led Senate.

Within hours of the first report in the New York Times, a preorder link was posted for “The Room Where It Happened; A White House Memoir.” The book was already No. 55 on the Amazon.com

best-seller list as of midday Monday.

Bolton’s acrimonious departure from the White House came a day before Trump ultimately released the Ukraine aid on Sept. 11. Since leaving his post, he has avoided publicly commenting on his time in the administration. Trump called Bolton’s claims “false” Monday, and seized on the timing of the revelations about the book to allege that Bolton was seeking to boost his book sales.

“It’s really pretty remarkable that the leak to the NYTimes about the alleged contents of John Bolton’s book coincided precisely with the pre-order page going live on Amazon,” tweeted Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. “It’s almost as if it were intended to boost sales.”

“I think the timing of all of this is very, very suspect,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, noting that Bolton used the same literary agent as former FBI director James Comey.

In a joint statement, Simon & Schuster, Bolton and his literary agency Javelin said, “... there was absolutely no coordination with the New York Times or anyone else regarding the appearance of information about his book ... at online booksellers.”

The White House has asked Bolton to remove classified material. Bolton’s attorney said it is Bolton’s “firm belief that the manuscript contained no information that could reasonably be considered classified.”

AP FILE RIVETING MATERIAL: An excerpt from former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s soon-to-be-released book has Democrats calling for him to testify in the Senate impeachment trial while people in President Trump’s administration claim his allegations are false and he’s just trying to boost sales of his book.