House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed former National Security Adviser John R. Bolton as opportunistic and “arrogant,” after new allegations against President Trump came out in excerpts of his upcoming book.
“President Trump is clearly ethically unfit and intellectually unprepared to be the president of the United States. That doesn’t seem to matter to the Republicans in the United States Senate. Didn’t seem to matter to John Bolton. He chose royalty over patriotism. And so he’s gonna make money off of his book,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said.
“I’m not paying any money for that book. I don’t want to pay any money for a book that was a substitute for testifying before Congress about the well-being of the American people,” she added.
“He was so arrogant in terms of the House when we were engaged in the impeachment,” Mrs. Pelosi said.
In his upcoming book “The Room Where It Happened,” which is set for release on Tuesday, Mr. Bolton claims Mr. Trump pushed the importance of agricultural trade on his reelection campaign to Chinese President Xi Jinping and praised China’s plan to build “concentration camps.”
Mr. Bolton’s allegations made him a key player in the impeachment case against Mr. Trump in January, as the earliest leaks reportedly asserted Mr. Trump told him military aid to Ukraine was being blocked until that country turned over information on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, his political rival, and on whether Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.
Those claims were at the center of the Democrats’ case, which accused Mr. Trump of using military aid to leverage Ukraine into opening investigations into Mr. Biden, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Mr. Trump was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in the House, but acquitted of all charges in the Senate — both on stark party-line votes.
The Trump defense team rallied against the allegations, arguing they were unconfirmed and a desperate, last-minute ploy to undermine the president’s case.
The White House is now arguing that Mr. Bolton violated the law by going forward with publishing a book with classified information. The Justice Department is seeking a restraining order to block the book’s release.
Senate Democrats used Mr. Bolton’s information to ramp up pressure on vulnerable Senate Republicans to support their push for key witnesses, which did not succeed.
Democrats received criticism for not pursuing a subpoena for Mr. Bolton, who said he would not cooperate with the House, in order to proceed quickly in the impeachment process.
Despite the criticism levied at Mr. Bolton, Democrats are taking his allegations seriously and some are raising the idea of pursuing a subpoena now.
Mrs. Pelosi said the committee chairs would “make a judgment” on that, but she did not say when.
• Gabriella Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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