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Trump Tied Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says

bver_hunter

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Nov 5, 2005
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This is a bombshell. That is why Moscow McConnell and Trump's cronies do not want Bolton to testify:

Drafts of the book outline the potential testimony of the former national security adviser if he were called as a witness in the president’s impeachment trial:

President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.

The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.

Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.

Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair.

The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.

Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.

For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.

Mr. Bolton also said that after the president’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, he raised with Attorney General William P. Barr his concerns about Mr. Giuliani, who was pursuing a shadow Ukraine policy encouraged by the president, and told Mr. Barr that the president had mentioned him on the call. A spokeswoman for Mr. Barr denied that he learned of the call from Mr. Bolton; the Justice Department has said he learned about it only in mid-August.

And the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was present for at least one phone call where the president and Mr. Giuliani discussed the ambassador, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he would always step away when the president spoke with his lawyer to protect their attorney-client privilege.

ImageMarie L. Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine, testified that she was “devastated” that the president vilified her.
Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine, testified that she was “devastated” that the president vilified her.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
During a previously reported May 23 meeting where top advisers and Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, briefed him about their trip to Kyiv for the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump railed about Ukraine trying to damage him and mentioned a conspiracy theory about a hacked Democratic server, according to Mr. Bolton.

Charles J. Cooper, a lawyer for Mr. Bolton, declined to comment. The White House did not provide responses to questions about Mr. Bolton’s assertions, and representatives for Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment on Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Bolton’s submission of the book to the White House may have given the White House lawyers direct insight into what Mr. Bolton would say if he were called to testify at Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. It also intensified concerns among some of his advisers that they needed to block Mr. Bolton from testifying, according to two people familiar with their concerns.

The White House has ordered Mr. Bolton and other key officials with firsthand knowledge of Mr. Trump’s dealings not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. Mr. Bolton said in a statement this month that he would testify if subpoenaed.
In recent days, some White House officials have described Mr. Bolton as a disgruntled former employee, and have said he took notes that he should have left behind when he departed the administration.

Mr. Trump told reporters last week that he did not want Mr. Bolton to testify and said that even if he simply spoke out publicly, he could damage national security.

“The problem with John is it’s a national security problem,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference in Davos, Switzerland. “He knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive?”

“It’s going to make the job very hard,” he added.

The Senate impeachment trial could end as early as Friday without witness testimony. Democrats in both the House and Senate have pressed for weeks to include any new witnesses and documents that did not surface during the House impeachment hearings to be fair, focusing on persuading the handful of Republican senators they would need to join them to succeed.

But a week into the trial, most lawmakers say the chances of 51 senators agreeing to call witnesses are dwindling, not growing.

Mr. Bolton would like to testify for several reasons, according to associates. He believes he has relevant information, and he has also expressed concern that if his account of the Ukraine affair emerges only after the trial, he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales.

Mr. Bolton, 71, a fixture in conservative national security circles since his days in the Reagan administration, joined the White House in 2018 after several people recommended him to the president, including the Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

But Mr. Bolton and Mr. Trump soured on each other over several global crises, including Iranian aggression, Mr. Trump’s posture toward Russia and, ultimately, the Ukraine matter. Mr. Bolton was also often at odds with Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney throughout his time in the administration.

Key to Mr. Bolton’s account about Ukraine is an exchange during a meeting in August with the president after Mr. Trump returned from vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Mr. Bolton raised the $391 million in congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine for its war in the country’s east against Russian-backed separatists. Officials had frozen the aid, and a deadline was looming to begin sending it to Kyiv, Mr. Bolton noted.

He, Mr. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper had collectively pressed the president about releasing the aid nearly a dozen times in the preceding weeks after lower-level officials who worked on Ukraine issues began complaining about the holdup, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Trump had effectively rebuffed them, airing his longstanding grievances about Ukraine, which mixed legitimate efforts by some Ukrainians to back his Democratic 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, with unsupported accusations and outright conspiracy theories about the country, a key American ally.

Mr. Giuliani had also spent months stoking the president’s paranoia about the American ambassador to Ukraine at the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch, claiming that she was openly anti-Trump and needed to be dismissed. Mr. Trump had ordered her removed as early as April 2018 during a private dinner with two Giuliani associates and others, a recording of the conversation made public on Saturday showed.

In his August 2019 discussion with Mr. Bolton, the president appeared focused on the theories Mr. Giuliani had shared with him, replying to Mr. Bolton’s question that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine.

The president often hits at multiple opponents in his harangues, and he frequently lumps together the law enforcement officials who conducted the Russia inquiry with Democrats and other perceived enemies, as he appeared to do in speaking to Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Bolton also described other key moments in the pressure campaign, including Mr. Pompeo’s private acknowledgment to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ms. Yovanovitch had no basis and that Mr. Giuliani may have wanted her removed because she might have been targeting his clients who had dealings in Ukraine as she sought to fight corruption.

Ms. Yovanovitch, a Canadian immigrant whose parents fled the Soviet Union and Nazis, was a well-regarded career diplomat who was known as a vigorous fighter against corruption in Ukraine. She was abruptly removed last year and told the president had lost trust in her, even though a boss assured her she had “done nothing wrong.”

Mr. Bolton also said he warned White House lawyers that Mr. Giuliani might have been leveraging his work with the president to help his private clients.

At the impeachment trial, Mr. Trump himself had hoped to have his defense call a range of people to testify who had nothing to do with his efforts related to Ukraine, including Hunter Biden, to frame the case around Democrats. But the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, repeatedly told the president that witnesses could backfire, and the White House has followed his lead.

Mr. McConnell and other Republicans in the Senate, working in tandem with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, have spent weeks waging their own rhetorical battle to keep their colleagues within the party tent on the question of witnesses, with apparent success. Two of the four Republican senators publicly open to witness votes have sounded notes of skepticism in recent days about the wisdom of having the Senate compel testimony that the House did not get.

Since Mr. Bolton’s statement, White House advisers have floated the possibility that they could go to court to try to obtain a restraining order to stop him from speaking. Such an order would be unprecedented, but any attempt to secure it could succeed in tying up his testimony in legal limbo and scaring off Republican moderates wary of letting the trial drag on when its outcome appears clear.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html
 

bver_hunter

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GOP prospects of defeating witness vote uncertain after New York Times Bolton report:

An explosive New York Times report detailing an unpublished draft manuscript by former national security adviser John Bolton has added new uncertainty to this week's crucial vote to determine whether the Senate should subpoena witnesses and documents in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, several GOP sources said.

Citing multiple people's description of the unpublished draft manuscript by Bolton, the Times reported that Bolton claims Trump told him in August that he wanted to continue holding military aid to Ukraine until the country helped with investigations into Democrats -- including former Vice President Joe Biden.
Before the report, GOP leaders were confident that they would defeat the vote this week. But now, it is less certain, according to three GOP sources.

"The witness vote was always going to be tough," said one source involved in the strategy. "The story makes that clear again."
Trump's purported statement, as described by Bolton, would directly tie the US military aid freeze with the President's requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his political rivals -- undermining a key pillar of the President's impeachment defense that the two circumstances are unrelated.
Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff tweeted Sunday night that "Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the President's defense."
"If the trial is to be fair, Senators must insist that Mr. Bolton be called as a witness, and provide his notes and other documents," he said.
Once the Senate is done hearing arguments from Trump's defense team, there will then be up to 16 hours of senator questions submitted in writing and then four hours of debate on whether to subpoena witnesses and documents. After the debate, the Senate will vote. If that motion gets 51 votes, then the Senate could move ahead with further votes to determine who to subpoena, including Bolton.
If 51 senators then vote to subpoena Bolton, the Senate resolution says he first must be privately deposed. After that, the Senate would have to decide whether to make him testify in public.
This means that the trial could be in limbo for sometime if the Senate decides to subpoena Bolton, especially given the legal battles that may ensue from any potential White House attempts to block the testimony. But if the Senate defeats the first motion to subpoena witnesses and documents, Trump may soon be acquitted.
Democrats quickly highlighted the Times report to bolster their calls for Bolton to testify.
In a joint statement, the seven House impeachment managers said the revelations confirm "what we already know."
"Americans know that a fair trial must include both the documents and witnesses blocked by the President — that starts with Mr. Bolton," the statement said.
Calling Trump's Ukraine conduct a "cover-up," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted that "The refusal of the Senate to call for him, other relevant witnesses, and documents is now even more indefensible."
Those sentiments were echoed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. "It's up to four Senate Republicans to ensure that John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, and the others with direct knowledge of President Trump's actions testify in the Senate trial, Schumer tweeted.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/26/politics/bolton-gop-witness-vote-trump-impeachment-trial/index.html
 

bver_hunter

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Trump should be hauled before a federal judge over threat against Adam Schiff: Ex-deputy Labor Secretary:

Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon, former Dep. Labor Secretary Chris Lu claimed Donald Trump should be hauled before a federal judge to explain his implied threat against Rep, Adam Schiff in light of the fact that the California Democrat is serving as a prosecutor in the impeachment trial against the president.

Speaking with host Alex Witt, Lu — seemed furious at the president over his tweet that implied to many the president was encouraging violence against a member of the House.

“There should be no doubt at this point that this is a president who is capable of shaking down a foreign leader for his own personal gain,” Lu told the host. “Apparently, the only people who are unable or unwilling to see this are the Senate Republicans. When this is pointed out, the threats against them are pointed out, they feign outrage.”

“If this were a normal court case, Donald Trump would be dragged before a federal judge right now to explain why his threat against a prosecutor is not a felony,” he continued. “We know the dangers of this. We have seen in October of 2018 how a deranged supporter sent out bombs to Clinton and Obama — these are not just words.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/tr...st-adam-schiff-ex-justice-department-counsel/
 

bver_hunter

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In light of this bombshell revelation from Bolton, all that his Defense are currently doing is to try their level best to prevent the witnesses from being allowed to testify. Their arguments are very flat, as they use the usual Republicans Judiciary Committee's line of questioning of the witnesses. We all know how everything was taken out of context when they questioned those witnesses, as it was not "first hand" evidence.

Interesting when the Democrats Legal team gets back on the floor to introduce the Bolton bombshell book revelations.
 

shack

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‘Devastating’ because impeachment trial was ‘on the fast track to closing out’:
So what if it takes a little longer? Are they worried that it leaves more time for more info to come out? Trump did nothing wrong so there should be nothing to worry about.
 

Frankfooter

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So what if it takes a little longer? Are they worried that it leaves more time for more info to come out? Trump did nothing wrong so there should be nothing to worry about.
They are worried that more will come out and evidence that Trump's team has lied at the senate, which could be big trouble as well.
 

bver_hunter

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So what if it takes a little longer? Are they worried that it leaves more time for more info to come out? Trump did nothing wrong so there should be nothing to worry about.
Well there are more revelations coming out all the time. Longer you hold on to them the bigger the bombshell:

New York Times: Bolton wrote he was concerned Trump was granting favors to autocratic leaders:

President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton claims to have privately told Attorney General William Barr last year that he was concerned the President was granting favors to the autocratic leaders of China and Turkey, The New York Times reported Monday, citing multiple people's descriptions of an unpublished draft manuscript by Bolton.

Barr told Bolton in response that he worried Trump had created the appearance of undue influence over two Justice Department investigations of companies in China and Turkey, which are traditionally independent inquiries, the draft manuscript says, according to the Times.
To make his point, Barr made specific reference to Trump's conversations with President Xi Jinping of China about Chinese telecommunications company ZTE, which agreed to pay fines in 2017 for violating US sanctions on doing business with Iran, North Korea and other countries, Bolton wrote, according to the Times. In 2018, the Trump administration reached a deal with ZTE to lift the ban in exchange for a series of other punishments, including the company overhauling its top management, bringing in an American monitoring team and paying a $1 billion fine.
Bolton also claims, the Times reported, that Barr cited Trump's comments to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018 about an investigation into the state-owned Turkish bank Halkbank -- though ultimately the Justice Department charged the bank with "fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offenses related to the bank's participation in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade US sanctions on Iran."
The newly purported revelations in Bolton's unpublished draft manuscript come the day after a New York Times report citing the same manuscript detailed how, according to Bolton, Trump said he wanted to continue holding military aid to Ukraine until the country helped with investigations into Democrats -- including former Vice President Joe Biden.
A source with direct knowledge of the manuscript told CNN that The New York Times' telling of Bolton's account of the discussion with Trump about the hold on the Ukraine aid is accurate.
Trump's purported statement, as described by Bolton, would directly tie the freeze on US military aid to the President's requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his political rivals -- undermining a key pillar of Trump's impeachment defense that the two circumstances are unrelated.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/politics/john-bolton-trump-turkey-china/index.html

Wonder whether someone like Barr is going to now be worried that he was told about it and even he mentioned that he was concerned about it. WOW!!
 

Dutch Oven

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This is a bombshell. That is why Moscow McConnell and Trump's cronies do not want Bolton to testify:

Drafts of the book outline the potential testimony of the former national security adviser if he were called as a witness in the president’s impeachment trial:

President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.

The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.

Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.

Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair.

The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.

Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.

For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.

Mr. Bolton also said that after the president’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, he raised with Attorney General William P. Barr his concerns about Mr. Giuliani, who was pursuing a shadow Ukraine policy encouraged by the president, and told Mr. Barr that the president had mentioned him on the call. A spokeswoman for Mr. Barr denied that he learned of the call from Mr. Bolton; the Justice Department has said he learned about it only in mid-August.

And the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was present for at least one phone call where the president and Mr. Giuliani discussed the ambassador, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he would always step away when the president spoke with his lawyer to protect their attorney-client privilege.

ImageMarie L. Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine, testified that she was “devastated” that the president vilified her.
Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine, testified that she was “devastated” that the president vilified her.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
During a previously reported May 23 meeting where top advisers and Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, briefed him about their trip to Kyiv for the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump railed about Ukraine trying to damage him and mentioned a conspiracy theory about a hacked Democratic server, according to Mr. Bolton.

Charles J. Cooper, a lawyer for Mr. Bolton, declined to comment. The White House did not provide responses to questions about Mr. Bolton’s assertions, and representatives for Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment on Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Bolton’s submission of the book to the White House may have given the White House lawyers direct insight into what Mr. Bolton would say if he were called to testify at Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. It also intensified concerns among some of his advisers that they needed to block Mr. Bolton from testifying, according to two people familiar with their concerns.

The White House has ordered Mr. Bolton and other key officials with firsthand knowledge of Mr. Trump’s dealings not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. Mr. Bolton said in a statement this month that he would testify if subpoenaed.
In recent days, some White House officials have described Mr. Bolton as a disgruntled former employee, and have said he took notes that he should have left behind when he departed the administration.

Mr. Trump told reporters last week that he did not want Mr. Bolton to testify and said that even if he simply spoke out publicly, he could damage national security.

“The problem with John is it’s a national security problem,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference in Davos, Switzerland. “He knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive?”

“It’s going to make the job very hard,” he added.

The Senate impeachment trial could end as early as Friday without witness testimony. Democrats in both the House and Senate have pressed for weeks to include any new witnesses and documents that did not surface during the House impeachment hearings to be fair, focusing on persuading the handful of Republican senators they would need to join them to succeed.

But a week into the trial, most lawmakers say the chances of 51 senators agreeing to call witnesses are dwindling, not growing.

Mr. Bolton would like to testify for several reasons, according to associates. He believes he has relevant information, and he has also expressed concern that if his account of the Ukraine affair emerges only after the trial, he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales.

Mr. Bolton, 71, a fixture in conservative national security circles since his days in the Reagan administration, joined the White House in 2018 after several people recommended him to the president, including the Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

But Mr. Bolton and Mr. Trump soured on each other over several global crises, including Iranian aggression, Mr. Trump’s posture toward Russia and, ultimately, the Ukraine matter. Mr. Bolton was also often at odds with Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney throughout his time in the administration.

Key to Mr. Bolton’s account about Ukraine is an exchange during a meeting in August with the president after Mr. Trump returned from vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Mr. Bolton raised the $391 million in congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine for its war in the country’s east against Russian-backed separatists. Officials had frozen the aid, and a deadline was looming to begin sending it to Kyiv, Mr. Bolton noted.

He, Mr. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper had collectively pressed the president about releasing the aid nearly a dozen times in the preceding weeks after lower-level officials who worked on Ukraine issues began complaining about the holdup, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Trump had effectively rebuffed them, airing his longstanding grievances about Ukraine, which mixed legitimate efforts by some Ukrainians to back his Democratic 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, with unsupported accusations and outright conspiracy theories about the country, a key American ally.

Mr. Giuliani had also spent months stoking the president’s paranoia about the American ambassador to Ukraine at the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch, claiming that she was openly anti-Trump and needed to be dismissed. Mr. Trump had ordered her removed as early as April 2018 during a private dinner with two Giuliani associates and others, a recording of the conversation made public on Saturday showed.

In his August 2019 discussion with Mr. Bolton, the president appeared focused on the theories Mr. Giuliani had shared with him, replying to Mr. Bolton’s question that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine.

The president often hits at multiple opponents in his harangues, and he frequently lumps together the law enforcement officials who conducted the Russia inquiry with Democrats and other perceived enemies, as he appeared to do in speaking to Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Bolton also described other key moments in the pressure campaign, including Mr. Pompeo’s private acknowledgment to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ms. Yovanovitch had no basis and that Mr. Giuliani may have wanted her removed because she might have been targeting his clients who had dealings in Ukraine as she sought to fight corruption.

Ms. Yovanovitch, a Canadian immigrant whose parents fled the Soviet Union and Nazis, was a well-regarded career diplomat who was known as a vigorous fighter against corruption in Ukraine. She was abruptly removed last year and told the president had lost trust in her, even though a boss assured her she had “done nothing wrong.”

Mr. Bolton also said he warned White House lawyers that Mr. Giuliani might have been leveraging his work with the president to help his private clients.

At the impeachment trial, Mr. Trump himself had hoped to have his defense call a range of people to testify who had nothing to do with his efforts related to Ukraine, including Hunter Biden, to frame the case around Democrats. But the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, repeatedly told the president that witnesses could backfire, and the White House has followed his lead.

Mr. McConnell and other Republicans in the Senate, working in tandem with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, have spent weeks waging their own rhetorical battle to keep their colleagues within the party tent on the question of witnesses, with apparent success. Two of the four Republican senators publicly open to witness votes have sounded notes of skepticism in recent days about the wisdom of having the Senate compel testimony that the House did not get.

Since Mr. Bolton’s statement, White House advisers have floated the possibility that they could go to court to try to obtain a restraining order to stop him from speaking. Such an order would be unprecedented, but any attempt to secure it could succeed in tying up his testimony in legal limbo and scaring off Republican moderates wary of letting the trial drag on when its outcome appears clear.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html
Your title is intentionally misleading. There is no published book. All claims concern an alleged manuscript. Are you aware how frequently content is removed from a manuscript prior to publication after legal review, based on potential litigation, based on editorial input, or based simply on further reflection by the author? It isn't a book until it hits the book stores.
 

bver_hunter

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Nov 5, 2005
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Your title is intentionally misleading. There is no published book. All claims concern an alleged manuscript. Are you aware how frequently content is removed from a manuscript prior to publication after legal review, based on potential litigation, based on editorial input, or based simply on further reflection by the author? It isn't a book until it hits the book stores.
Every news outlet including Fox News are calling it a "Book" in their titles. Maybe you should call all of them and let them know that it is "misleading"!!

As the New York Times explains, it is a "Draft of the Book". That is what the manuscript is now known to be. We do not know what exact form this manuscript is in when it was submitted to the Whitehouse for review. It may have been in a form of the actual book. After all even my notebook is considered to be a book. Okay??
 

Frankfooter

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Your title is intentionally misleading. There is no published book. All claims concern an alleged manuscript. Are you aware how frequently content is removed from a manuscript prior to publication after legal review, based on potential litigation, based on editorial input, or based simply on further reflection by the author? It isn't a book until it hits the book stores.
The book is due to be published March 17, though may be sped up now.
 

WyattEarp

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May 17, 2017
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Would any of you agree that if you were going to create a big marketing buzz for the pre-sales of Bolton's book, this "leak" created about as big a buzz as you can get?
 

bver_hunter

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No one is bothered about the book sales for now. No doubt this issue has created a sales publicity, when the book is released for the book shelves!!
 

Frankfooter

dangling member
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Would any of you agree that if you were going to create a big marketing buzz for the pre-sales of Bolton's book, this "leak" created about as big a buzz as you can get?
Yes, if Bolton let it leak it shows how smart and wily he is.
Just the kind of guy to take down Trump, who pissed him off and fired him.
 
Ashley Madison
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