John Bolton’s New Book Confirms Claims About the Trump Administration
“The Room Where It Happened” Have you come across this? Well, it is the new book by John Bolton which is expected to become a best seller. But why is the Trump Administration worried about this book?
John Bolton is a staunchly conservative Republican who briefly served as National Security Advisor under President Trump before being fired. Several media sources including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times have reported heavy criticism from his new book titled, “The Room Where It Happened.” Here’s a quick overview of claims from the book that the Trump administration is challenging on legal grounds.
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Asking Xi for Campaign Help
An excerpt from The Wall Street Journal says while Trump and President Xi Jinping were discussing hostility toward China in the US, Bolton writes, “Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”
Ending Presidential Term Limits
Also from the Wall Street Journal is an excerpt claiming that Trump supported President Xi’s idea of eliminating presidential term limits. “Xi said he wanted to work with Trump for six more years, and Trump replied that people were saying that the two-term constitutional limit on presidents should be repealed for him,” Bolton writes. “Xi said the US had too many elections, because he didn’t want to switch away from Trump, who nodded approvingly.”
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Support for Chinese Interment Camps
According to Bolton, Trump expressed approved Xi’s defense of internment camps for Uighur Muslims. “According to our interpreter,” Bolton writes, “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”
Favors for Dictators
The Washington Post published an excerpt claiming that Trump tried to kill criminal investigations as favors for dictators. One story is that Trump quashed a criminal investigation into a Turkish firm in the US after a request from Turkish President Erdoğan.
Protecting Ivanka
The book also claims there was a scheme behind the administration’s statement in November 2018 that appeared to defend Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s decision to kill Jamal Khashoggi. The statement is alleged to have been an attempt to shift attention from a controversy over his daughter Ivanka’s decision to use her personal email for government business, the same sin that President Trump slammed Hillary Clinton for during the 2016 election.
Geopolitical Ignorance
Bolton also highlights alleged instances of geopolitical ignorance on the part of the President. They include a lack of understanding of the nuclear triad and its role in US defense well into his presidency. It’s claimed that Trump thought Finland was part of Russia and that Trump said invading Venezuela would be “cool” because the country was really a part of the US.
Staff Disfunction
Another claim in Bolton’s book is that several top staffers within the Trump administration mocked the President behind his back.
Harsh former administration critics of President Trump such as John Bolton and General Mattis raise the temperature in this election season. Critics of theirs ask, where were they during the impeachment hearings when they could have made more of an impact?
The Room Where It Happened is a must read.