Trump impeachment prosecutors focused too ‘narrowly’ on Ukraine, John Bolton says in new book

WASHINGTON — Former national security advisor John Bolton will say in his forthcoming memoir that House Democrats who impeached President Donald Trump last year for withholding U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine were focused too narrowly on one country.

In reality, “Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range” of Trump’s foreign policy, Bolton writes in “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.”

The former national security advisor also “documents exactly what the [transgressions] were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them,” according to a new promotional blurb from Bolton’s publisher, Simon Schuster.

“The Room Where it Happened” is scheduled for release on June 23, the publisher said Friday. The memoir was originally scheduled for publication in March of this year but was held up for months awaiting clearance from the National Security Council, which has yet to fully sign off on it.

From the publisher: “What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. ‘I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations.'”

Bolton “shows a President addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government … who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal — about personal relationships, made-for-TV showmanship, and advancing his own interests.” 

As a result of Trump’s selfish approach to foreign policy, Bolton argues in the book that, “the U.S. lost an opportunity to confront its deepening threats, and in cases like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea ended up in a more vulnerable place.”

A spokesman for the National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment Friday from CNBC on the newly released details.

Simon Schuster said Bolton worked “in cooperation” with the National Security Council to incorporate their recommended changes. “The final, published version of this book reflects those changes, and Simon Schuster is fully supportive of Ambassador Bolton’s First Amendment right to tell the story of his time in the Trump White House,” said the publisher.

But the White House said earlier this month that it has not cleared the book for publication. Bolton, however, has accused Trump and the administration of trying to quash the book under the pretext of national security reviews. Friday’s announcement confirms that Bolton and Simon Schuster have decided to move ahead with publication even without a formal sign-off. 

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/12/john-bolton-book-says-trump-impeachment-focused-too-narrowly-on-ukraine.html