Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claims in his upcoming memoir that President Trump asked China’s Xi Jinping to help his reelection prospects by purchasing more American farm products, according to reports Wednesday.
During the June 2019 G-20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, Bolton wrote, Xi noted that certain unidentified US politicians were calling for a new cold war with China, to which Trump “said approvingly that there was great hostility to China among the Democrats,” according to multiple media outlets that obtained advance copies of the book.
“Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton wrote.
“He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”
In “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” Bolton also says say he notified Attorney General William Barr and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone about several instances when Trump allegedly expressed a willingness to block probes of such firms as the Chinese telecom company ZTE and Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank.
“The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,” Bolton wrote.
If Democrats had expanded their impeachment case beyond allegations surrounding the withholding of about $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, Bolton wrote, “there might have been a greater chance to persuade others that ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ had been perpetrated.”
Bolton also claims that Trump privately admitted to the “quid pro quo” at the heart of the case during a conversation in August.
“He said he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all Russia-investigation material related to [Hillary] Clinton and [former Vice President Joe] Biden had been turned over.”
The Justice Department sued Tuesday to block publication of the book, set to be released the following Tuesday by Simon & Schuster, on grounds that it contains classified information.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway warned Wednesday that national security was at risk if Bolton’s tell-all gets published before “the review processes have been completed, and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the book was “full of classified information, which is inexcusable.”
The White House didn’t immediately comment on the reports about the book’s contents, but US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer denied Bolton’s account of Trump asking Xi to buy soybeans and wheat so he could win re-election.
“Absolutely untrue. Never happened. I was there. I have no recollection of that ever happening. I don’t believe it’s true. I don’t believe it ever happened,” he said when asked about the allegation during a Senate hearing.
“Would I recollect something as crazy as that? Of course, I would recollect it.”
In the nearly 600-page book, Bolton claims he repeatedly saw Trump engage in “a pattern of fundamentally unacceptable behavior that eroded the very legitimacy of the presidency.”
Meanwhile, most of Trump’s underlings served him so poorly that the commander in chief “saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government.���
Also during the 2019 G-20 meeting, Trump and Xi discussed China’s construction of concentration camps to inter the country’s population of Uighurs, an ethnic minority, 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.”
Other details from the book include Bolton’s claims that:
- Trump’s ignorance of foreign affairs included asking then-Chief of Staff John Kelly if Finland was part of Russia and asking a British official, “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” which Bolton says “was not intended as a joke.”
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slipped Bolton a note during Trump’s 2018 meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un that said of the president, “He’s so full of s–t,” and later said the unprecedented negotiations had “zero probability of success.”
- Trump pressed Pompeo to deliver an autographed copy of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” on CD to Kim during the secretary’s follow-up visit to North Korea.
- Trump told Bolton that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used obscene, sexist language to refer to then-UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, which Bolton doubted but found revealing about the president.
- Trump held only two intelligence briefings a week, which were a waste of time because “much of the time was spent listening to Trump, rather than Trump listening to the briefers.”
- Trump railed against journalists during a summer 2019 meeting in New Jersey, saying they should be jailed to reveal the sources. “These people should be executed. They are scumbags,” he said.
- During a May 2019 phone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin “largely persuaded Trump” to back Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro by comparing opposition leader Juan Guaido to Hillary Clinton, which Bolton calls a “brilliant display of Soviet style propaganda.” Trump also once referred to Venezuela as “really part of the United States” and said invading it would be “cool.”
- Trump told Xi that Americans wanted him to change the Constitution so he could serve more than two terms.
- Trump intentionally sparked outrage by writing a defense of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi amid controversy over daughter Ivanka Trump using her government e-mail for private business. “This will divert from Ivanka,” he said.
The book also asserts that Trump made so many false or wrong statements that quotes attributed to him are followed by disclaimers such as “(the opposite of the truth)” and that while his snap judgments sometimes mirrored Bolton’s views, others were reckless and risky.
“His thinking was like an archipelago of dots (like individual real estate deals), leaving the rest of us to discern — or create — policy,” Bolton wrote.
“That had its pros and cons.”