Bolton confirms Trump put pressure on Ukraine to investigate his rivals – NYT
This is stated in an article of The New York Times concerning Bolton's book “The Room Where It Happened” in advance of its scheduled publication next Tuesday.
On August 20, Mr. Bolton writes, Mr. Trump “said he wasn’t in favor of sending them [the Ukrainian side] anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over.”
Mr. Bolton writes that he, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper tried eight to 10 times to get Mr. Trump to release the aid.
In addition, Bolton says in his new book that the House of Representatives in its impeachment inquiry should have investigated President Trump not just for pressuring Ukraine but for a variety of instances when he sought to use trade negotiations and criminal investigations to further his political interests.
He describes several episodes where the president expressed a willingness to halt criminal investigations “to, in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked,” citing cases involving major firms in China and Turkey. “The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,” Mr. Bolton writes, saying that he reported his concerns to Attorney General William P. Barr.
Mr. Bolton also adds a striking new accusation by describing how Mr. Trump overtly linked tariff talks with China to his own political fortunes by asking President Xi Jinping to buy American agricultural products to help him win farm states in this year’s election.
As known, the publication of the book “The Room Where It Happened” is scheduled for June 23. Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a judge for an emergency restraining order to block the book's publication.
Photo credit: Doug Mills / The New York Times
