President Trump said Wednesday that former National Security Adviser John R. Bolton had poor judgment and would have pushed the U.S. into “World War Six” if he hadn’t been fired.
The president’s broadside came as Democrats are clamoring for Mr. Bolton to testify in the president’s impeachment trial. Mr. Bolton has written a book manuscript that reportedly supports the impeachment charges of Mr. Trump withholding military aid to Ukraine to get a corruption investigation of Democratic candidate Joseph R. Biden.
In a series of tweets, the president said, “Why didn’t John Bolton complain about this ’nonsense’ a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated. He said, not that it matters, NOTHING!”
The president went on, “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, 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. All Classified National Security.”
“Who would do this?” Mr. Trump asked.
Mr. Bolton served as Mr. Trump’s top national security aide from April 2018 to September 2019. He was criticized for referring to the “Libyan model” as a template for denuclearization of North Korea, action that led to Libya’s destabilization and the killing of its leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
A hawk on Iran and North Korea, Mr. Bolton served as U.N. ambassador under a recess appointment during the administration of President George W. Bush. He left the post with Democrats controlling the Senate and his confirmation unlikely.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.