Bolton: Trump asked China to help him get reelected
President Donald Trump “pleaded” with China’s Xi Jinping during a 2019 summit to help his reelection prospects, according to a scathing new book by former Trump adviser John Bolton that accuses the president of being driven by political calculations when making national security decisions.
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.
The 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. Several other former officials have written books, but most have been flattering about the president. Other former officials have indicated they were saving their accounts of their time working for Trump until after he left office in order to speak more candidly. The Associated Press obtained a copy of Bolton’s book in advance of its release next week.
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
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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.”
Trump was asked about the book Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity.” He turned to personal insults, calling Bolton a “washed-up guy. I gave him a chance.”
He also took issue with copies of the book being released. “He broke the law. Very simple. I mean, as much as it’s going to be broken.” Trump said. “It’s highly classified information and he did not have approval.”
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 prepublication 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
In this 2019 file photo, former national security adviser John Bolton gestures while speakings at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. woman 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.”
President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the PREVENTS “President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide,” task force, in the East Room of the White House, on Wednesday in Washington. information. In others, “Absolutely untrue. Never he was asked to describe happened. I was there. I have things more generally. He no recollection of that ever was asked to remove quotation happening. I don’t believe it’s marks nearly every true. I don’t believe it ever time he recounts conversation happened,” Lighthizer said. between Trump and “Would I recollect something foreign leaders and himself as crazy as that? Of course, and foreign leaders. I would recollect it.”
U.S. Trade Representative Bolton wrote that he raised Robert Lighthizer said some of his concerns about Wednesday that he attended a Trump’s conversations with meeting between Trump and foreign leaders with Attorney Xi at the Group of 20 nations General William Barr, and in Osaka, but he never heard flagged similar worries with Trump pleading with Xi to White House attorneys and buy more agriculture products Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. to ensure he would win “The pattern looked like reelection. Lighthizer spoke obstruction of justice as a at a Senate hearing on trade way of life, which we couldn’t issues and was asked about accept,” he wrote.
Bolton’s recollection of events. Justice Department spokes