.
Trump’s continued to tweet: “With that being said the transcripts of my calls with President Zelensky are all the proof that is needed, in addition to the fact that President Zelensky & the Foreign Minister of Ukraine said there was no pressure and no problems. Additionally, I met with President Zelensky at the United Nations (Democrats said I never met) and released the military aid to Ukraine without any conditions or investigations - and far ahead of schedule.”
“I also allowed Ukraine to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles. My Administration has done far more than the previous Administration. The Democrat controlled House never even asked John Bolton to testify. It is up to them, not up to the Senate!”
Yahoo News reports that Trump’s tweets contained several false statements: Democrats never claimed that Trump did not meet Zelensky; Trump did not release the aid to Ukraine “far ahead of schedule”; and House investigators did ask Bolton to testify in their impeachment inquiry, though they chose not to subpoena him.
Trump and his minions are not only calling John Bolton a liar but they are saying his motivation in releasing parts of his book early is to gin up sales.
According to this website John Bolton is currently worth $6 million, so while technically a millionaire he isn’t super rich.
,John Bolton Salary: According to a disclosure from a 2019 lawsuit, John Bolton earned $569,423 from Fox News before joining the Trump administration. That made him one of the highest-paid contributors to Fox News. Average contributors (non full-time staff/personalities) earn around $141,000 per year, so Bolton's pay is on the very high end of the spectrum. The next highest-paid contributor, Heather Nauert, earned $485,000.
He currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland where home prices range from the middle to high six figures into the millions.
If John, his wife Gretchen Smith Bolton, a financial planner with AXA Advisor and their daughter Jennifer want to move to 6699 Macarthur Blvd. (top middle above) presumably the only way they could afford such a spectacular mansion with a view of the Potomac River is to have a runaway best selling book. Even then, $17.5 million is a lot of change.
He could yearn to live like a in a faux castle like this, a bargain at $12 million, which is still beyond his current means.
It is possible that if money is a primary motivation Bolton could still decide that he wants to announce that he’d donate royalties from the book to charity.
In 2017 it was reported that, after a bidding way, the Obamas earned more than $65 million in their book deal.
It’s been reported that Bolton got a comparatively paltry $2 million advance from Simon & Schuster for his book. This is a drop in the bucket if he wants to live like royalty.
However, there are fees for speaking engagements to consider. It was reported in 2016 that Bill and Hillary Clinton made $153 million in speaking fees. It was also reported, not always positively, that Barack Obama charged $400,000 for speaking engagements.
Whether he could command the speaking fees the Clintons or Obama’s have is highly doubtful. However, at least for a year he’d be a hot commodity on the speaker circuit so if he wanted to travel the country like a rock band and do one or more speaking engagement a week with a good booking agent if he could charge, say $20,000 per talk and did 100 a year that would be a mere $2 million.
Again, hardly enough to afford one of these Bethesda mansions.
Shortly after Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” took off as a runaway best seller it was estimated it could earn the author $7.4 million (I couldn't find a final figure).
If John Bolton wants to be richer than he already is and at least double his net worth he has to count on royalty fees.
If he is more motivated to stick it to Donald Trump he’d announce that he was going to donate the royalties.
I’m not holding my breath
The Poll: Romney: ‘Increasingly Likely’ More Republicans Will Support Calling Bolton As Witness, what do you think?