CONGRESS
Everybody in Washington hates John Bolton
Republicans say he's disgruntled while Democrats think
he's just trying to sell books. And Trump calls him a 'sick puppy.'
By ANDREW
DESIDERIO and BURGESS EVERETT
06/18/2020
04:41 PM EDT
A day after
excerpts from his bombshell new book emerged excoriating President Donald
Trump, the former national security adviser has managed to turn everyone
against him.
Republicans
say he’s a disgruntled sensationalist who’s merely trying to make money off his
book. And Democrats, once buoyed by Bolton’s turn against Trump, now say he is
“unpatriotic” for documenting his claims in a book rather than testifying
before Congress during Trump’s impeachment inquiry.
Several
Republicans this week took direct shots at Bolton, a neoconservative once
heralded as the gold standard for the GOP on foreign policy and national
security issues.
Sen. Kevin
Cramer (R-N.D.) said Bolton is “somebody who thought he was being hired to be
the commander in chief, and he wasn’t.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he
found it hard to take seriously “anyone who claims to have witnessed treason
and obstruction of justice and tells about it in a book.”
“Every
meeting I’ve been in with John Bolton, he views himself as the smartest person
in the room,” added Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 GOP leader. “He
thinks he should be president, speaker of the House and chief justice of the
Supreme Court all at the same time.”
Barrasso
also accused Bolton of becoming “the darling of the liberal left.” But that’s
not exactly true, either. Despite producing several new vivid anecdotes that
could launch new congressional investigations targeting the Trump
administration, Bolton has few friends in the opposition party.
Sen.
Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Bolton “cares more about his book than he did
public service.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Bolton is “obviously
interested in making money, not saving the republic.”
On the
House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday criticized Bolton for not
testifying during the impeachment trial and said she’ll meet with committee
chairs to discuss whether to haul him in to speak to lawmakers.
And it’s
not just Capitol Hill Democrats who once tried to subpoena Bolton and
Republicans who feel like he’s turned on the party to juice his book sales. The
Trump administration is suing him in an attempt to block publication of the
book even as it’s set to be released in the coming days.
Asked about
the timing of Bolton’s book and his credibility, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.)
declared: “Nothing about that smells right. The House is frustrated by it, we
are frustrated about it.”
Chris
Murphy
Sen. Chris
Murphy (D-Conn.) said Bolton is “obviously interested in making money, not
saving the Republic.”
In his
forthcoming memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” Bolton makes a series of
explosive claims and argues that House Democrats focused their impeachment
investigation too narrowly on the president’s posture toward Ukraine and
suggests Trump may have committed multiple impeachable offenses.
Bolton
alleges that Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy American
agricultural products to help him win reelection, and that the president
encouraged Xi to continue building concentration camps for the Muslim Uighurs,
a religious minority in the country’s Xinjiang region.
Several
senior Republicans indicated they had no interest in discussing Bolton’s
bombshell claims, questioning both his credibility and his motivations. It’s a
somewhat painful moment for the hawkish Republican Party, which once found
itself in lockstep with Bolton on many issues.
“I don’t
have anything to say about it, because he’s selling books,” Sen. John Cornyn
(R-Texas) said. He also downplayed any suggestion that Bolton should testify.
“I have no
ill feeling towards John Bolton. Do you want to ask me about any policy
questions?” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
In January,
Bolton said he would be willing to testify as part of the Senate impeachment
trial under subpoena; but just two Republicans — Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and
Susan Collins of Maine — joined Democrats in the failed effort to hear from
additional witnesses. Several Republicans said they didn’t need to hear from
Bolton in order to conclude that Trump did, in fact, solicit Ukraine’s help in
the 2020 presidential election, even as they determined that it was not
impeachable.
“The
question for me was, did I need to hear more evidence to prove that the
president did what the Democrats accused him of doing. And I said no because I’m
convinced he did it,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who was essentially
the deciding vote on the witness question.
Still,
Bolton resisted efforts to testify before House impeachment investigators —
even threatening to challenge a subpoena in court if Democrats issued one to
him, citing directives from the White House.
“He did it
to maximize book sales. He felt like if he gave away information before, it
would hurt his book sales,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said. “And so he held back
even when it would be valuable to the nation.”
Democrats
also took issue with Bolton’s criticisms of the impeachment inquiry, arguing
that he should have testified if he felt that he had relevant information to
share.
“Bolton
himself says if the Democrats just asked the right questions the impeachment
might have turned differently,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). “Mr. Bolton,
why didn’t you come forward and testify to this effect while we were conducting
an impeachment trial?”
Members of
Bolton’s staff, however, testified voluntarily during the impeachment inquiry,
something Democrats regularly pointed out as they decried Bolton’s
“unpatriotic” refusal, as House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
put it in statements filled with criticism.
“For the
first time in my 14-year political career I agree with Adam Schiff,” said Sen.
Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). He said of Bolton’s book: “I got a long reading list
ahead of me, and it’s not going to go to the top of the stack.”
But
Democrats may find Bolton’s book more enticing. And they were quick not to
dismiss Bolton’s claims outright, saying that many of them fit into a pattern
for Trump. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Whip Dick
Durbin (D-Ill.) said they found Bolton credible, while Brown said Bolton likely
had documents to back up his assertions.
“I
understand that given his motivations, people might question what he’s written.
That’s a logical skepticism,” Murphy said. “But what he’s written seems
consistent with everything we’ve watched Trump do publicly for the past three
years.”
Senate
Democrats are pushing for additional information on many of Bolton’s
assertions, most notably his allegations involving Trump’s conversations with
Xi.
“Regardless
of whether you believe it or not, it needs to be tested because some of the
issues presented in the book, if true, in my view undermine the interests of
the United States,” said New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on
the Foreign Relations Committee.
Marco Rubio
The
GOP-controlled Senate, though, is unlikely to pursue Bolton’s account of
working at the White House.
Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-Fla.), the interim chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, demurred
on whether he was interested in bringing Bolton before the panel to question
him about the classified aspects of his memoir. Rubio declined to take sides in
the battle between Bolton and Trump, who has repeatedly accused Bolton of
lying.
Bolton
doesn’t seem to have many friends left within the Trump administration, either.
Hours after explosive details from the manuscript emerged, the Justice
Department asked a federal judge for an emergency order to block publication of
Bolton’s book, which is slated for public release on Tuesday and has already
been shipped to some sellers.
The Justice
Department argued that Bolton’s book contains classified information — an
apparent acknowledgment that many of the details in the book are true. Yet Trump
and his allies have dubbed Bolton a liar, saying he fabricated the anecdotes
included in the book.
“Bolton’s
book, which is getting terrible reviews, is a compilation of lies and made up
stories, all intended to make me look bad,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
“Many of the ridiculous statements he attributes to me were never made, pure
fiction. Just trying to get even for firing him like the sick puppy he is!”
Marianne
LeVine contributed to this report.
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