Part of John Bolton’s new book (as shared with Axios):
Game On!
Scoop: John Bolton to argue Trump misconduct
John Bolton taunts President Trump, his former boss, on the back cover of his forthcoming book: "Game on."
- In a memoir coming June 23 that the White House has tried to delay, former national security adviser Bolton will offer multiple revelations about Trump’s conduct in office, with direct quotes by the president and senior officials, according to a source familiar with the book.
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In "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," Bolton will go beyond Ukraine, and argue there was "Trump misconduct with other countries," the source said.
Behind the scenes: People close to Trump have been worried about the book because Bolton was known as the most prolific note taker in high-level meetings, Jonathan Swan reports.
- Bolton would sit there, filling yellow legal pad after yellow legal pad with notes.
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In short: Bolton saw a lot, and he wrote it down in real time. And when he left, the White House never got those notes back.
And Donny is suing.
I’m sorry, did I say Donny?
I meant The United States Department of Justice.
The United States Department of Justice is suing John Bolton, personally, in a ridiculous attempt to keep this book from being released. It’s due next week.
The suit, filed in Washington, DC, federal court, alleges that Bolton's 500-plus page manuscript was "rife with classified information," and prosecutors say that Bolton backed out of an ongoing White House vetting process for the book that he'd been obligated to do as a result of agreements.
Bolton's book has already shipped to warehouses ahead of its scheduled release. He has taped an interview with ABC slated to air Sunday. And a source close to him says he is intent on publishing the book as scheduled Tuesday, meaning he expects to deal with any ramifications from the administration in the aftermath, not before.
CNN has reached out to an attorney for Bolton for comment. In a letter sent to the NSC's legal adviser last week, Chuck Cooper, Bolton's attorney,
….accused the White House of seeking to block the book for "purely political reasons," adding that "as a practical matter, (it) comes too late."
But why all the fuss, Donny?
One critical account from the book emerged during the trial, when The New York Times reported that Mr. Bolton, in his manuscript, said that Mr. Trump directly tied military aid to Ukraine to his desire for investigations he sought to undermine a political rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Bolton made clear, in a statement released this week, that the book contained other explosive details.
So, what Bolton (herein referred to as “craven asshole”) could have told the world at the House testimonies, he apparently withheld for his tell-all book.
Like a……………...well………………..like a craven asshole.
I hate Craven Asshole with the light of a thousand suns. Always have. Always will.
But when my enemy attacks my ARCH-enemy, I can only applaud.
Perhaps delaying this info to release closer to the election, will be even MORE damaging.
Remember this?
Former national security adviser John Bolton derided President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law during a private speech last week and suggested his former boss’ approach to U.S. policy on Turkey is motivated by personal or financial interests, several people who were present for the remarks told NBC News.
According to six people who were there, Bolton also questioned the merits of Trump applying his business acumen to foreign policy, saying such issues can’t be approached like the win-or-lose edict that drives real estate deals: When one deal doesn’t work, you move on to the next.
The description was part of a broader portrait Bolton outlined of a president who lacks an understanding of the interconnected nature of relationships in foreign policy and the need for consistency, these people said.
And this……..
“Since resigning as National Security Advisor, the @WhiteHouse refused to return access to my personal Twitter account,” tweeted Bolton, whose account had been dormant since he left the White House in September.
“Out of fear of what I may say?” asked Bolton,
who has been asked by Democrats to testify in the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
“To those who speculated I went into hiding, I’m sorry to disappoint!” he tweeted.
But what about those accusations? From The United States Department of Justice Donald Trump. Apparently, Trump and Barr have been slow-walking the vetting process with Bolton, likely in order to push publication back until after the election this November.
Another question: If the DOJ is “suing” Bolton, then why are we hearing arguments and accusations from DOJ………….prosecutors?
And Trump asserted that Bolton should face "criminal problems" for publishing allegedly classified information -- since, Trump claimed, "any conversation with me is classified." Though the president is in charge of deciding what is classified, experts in national security law called Trump's sweeping claim absurd. Trump is staking a claim for far more secrecy than previous presidents have sought -- and ignoring an executive order that makes clear that certain material should not be classified.
Bolton and classification
Trump said: "If he wrote a book, I can't imagine that he can, because that's highly classified information. Even conversations with me -- they're highly classified. I told that to the attorney general before. I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified. So that would mean that if he wrote a book, and if the book gets out, he's broken the law."
Facts First:
The President is the authority over what is classified and not; he is allowed to declare, even after the fact, that a conversation is classified. However, courts could still overturn him if he formally tried to assert that every single thing he said to someone as president was classified -- a claim that five experts told CNN is plainly unreasonable. And the still-standing 2009 executive order that is supposed to govern classification specifically says that there are certain reasons for which material cannot be classified.