President Donald Trump blew up at former National Security Adviser John Bolton on Wednesday morning after Bolton’s damning accounts in his unpublished manuscript threw a wrench in Republican senators’ plan to block witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial.
“For a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, ‘begged’ me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying ‘Don’t do it, sir,’ takes the job, mistakenly says ‘Libyan Model’ on T.V., and many more mistakes of judgement,” Trump ranted via Twitter. “Gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book.”
The President also fired off at midnight a shorter complaint about Bolton, who departed from the White House on sour terms with Trump in September.
“Why didn’t John Bolton complain about this ‘nonsense’ a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated,” Trump tweeted. “He said, not that it matters, NOTHING!”
However, it’s extremely unlikely Trump was unaware of the contents of Bolton’s upcoming book given that the White House was given the manuscript for review on December 30.
According to the New York Times’ report on the manuscript this week, Trump explicitly told Bolton that he wanted to continue freezing the military aid to Ukraine until Ukrainian officials handed over documents pertinent to an investigation into Joe Biden.
The Times also reported that Bolton’s manuscript describes how the former adviser told Attorney General Bill Barr that he was concerned Trump was doing personal favors for the presidents of China and Turkey.
The revelations seem to have complicated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) Trump-approved scheme to rush the impeachment trial without allowing witnesses to testify; Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) have admitted Bolton’s manuscript makes a strong case for witness testimony, and McConnell privately told his caucus on Tuesday that he does not yet have the votes to block witnesses.
