By Aaron Miller-
Excerpts of a book written by former national security adviser, John Bolton, has been published as the Justice Department is seeking an emergency injunction preventing the release of Bolton’s book.
The Justice Department insists that Bolton had deliberately bypassed the necessary classification review process and that his manuscript still contains classified information.
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John Bolton’s upcoming 592-page memoir, “The Room Where it Happened” — and the manuscript contains several previously unreported claims of intrigue and realpolitik among key administration figures, past and present.
Bolton served as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 and was United Nations ambassador in the George W. Bush administration.
Bolton says in his book that Trump “raised the widespread political rumour he would dump Vice President Mike Pence from the ticket in 2020 and run instead with [then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki] Haley, asking what I thought.”
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He adds that “Ivanka [Trump] and [Jared] Kushner favoured this approach, which tied in with Haley’s leaving her position as UN Ambassador in December 2018, thus allowing her to do some politicking around the country before being named to the ticket in 2020.”
Haley was believed to be able to boost Trump’s rating among disaffected women voters, at the possible cost of losing evangelicals partial to Pence.
“I explained it was a bad idea to jettison someone loyal,” Bolton writes
In most Administrations, that would have gotten Tillerson fired, so I wondered if he ever actually said it,” Bolton says. “And if he hadn’t, why did Trump tell me he had?”
Bolton adds that Kushner had told him Trump thought he had done a “great job” early on in his tenure, which to Bolton “meant I would probably make it through the end of my fourth day on the job.”
Frustration
The memoir says John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, over the president’s push to revoke the security clearance of ex-CIA Director John Brennan in late 2018.
Obtained by Fox News, the book also claims that Kelly told Bolton he had an “argument” with Trump, saying it was “not presidential” to publicly revoke Brennan’s security clearance, according to Bolton. Kelly also told Bolton it was “Nixonian” behaviour.
Bolton writes: “‘Has there ever been a presidency like this?’ Kelly asked me, and I assured him there had not. … I thought there was a case against Brennan for politicizing the CIA, but Trump had obscured it by the blatantly political approach he took. It would only get worse if more clearances were lifted.”
The U.S Justice department is yet to comment on various aspects of the book.
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