As Bolton speaks, Congress shrugs

WASHINGTON — Congress seems largely done with John Bolton.

That’s despite the allegations the former national security adviser leveled against President Donald Trump in a new book detailing Bolton’s 17 months in the White House. Bolton wrote that Trump “pleaded” with China’s Xi Jinping during a 2019 summit to help his re-election and engaged in a pattern that resembled “obstruction of justice as a way of life.”

Trump denounced the book from Bolton, known as a prodigious note taker, as “a compilation of lies and made up stories.”

Lawmakers of both parties agreed Bolton’s relevance to any congressional probe of Trump has passed.

“I’m not paying any money for a book that was a substitute for testifying before Congress,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. “President Trump is clearly ethically unfit and intellectually unprepared to be the president of the United States. That doesn’t seem to matter to Republicans in the United States Senate.”

“It’s not going to make any difference at this point. We’ve got an election in 4 1/2 months,” said Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind. “I think there are a lot more important issues: police reform and maybe get back to some of the stuff we were doing even before impeachment, like reforming health care.”

Bolton’s book is a familiar story to members. The House impeached and the Senate acquitted Trump on abuse and obstruction charges stemming from his pressure on Ukraine’s president for political help.