Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton accused President Donald Trump of making serious mistakes in running the country, including that he had explicitly asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him in his second term election.
Bolton also said that the US President expressed his willingness to stop criminal investigations to provide "a personal favor for dictatorial personalities I love", according to an excerpt published in the New York Times from Bolton's book "From the Hall of Fame: Notes from the White House."
Bolton's allegations offer a new excuse for Trump's critics before the November 3 presidential election, including talks attributed to Trump with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In the most distorted portrayal of the Trump administration by a figure she once worked with, Bolton wrote, "Then Trump turned, surprisingly, the conversation to the upcoming US presidential elections, hinting at China's economic ability and appealing to Shi to win."
In the excerpts published by The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Bolton wrote that Trump stressed the importance of American farmers and how "China's increased purchases of soybeans and wheat" could influence the electoral outcome in the United States .
"I would have liked to print Trump's own words, but the pre-release government review process decided otherwise," Bolton said, referring to a draft of his book being scrutinized by US agencies months ago.
Execution of journalists
From what was stated in the book, Trump told his Chinese counterpart that he wanted to cancel the constitutional article that limits the president's term for two consecutive terms, and the Chinese president told him that the Americans are holding a lot of elections, so Trump nodded in agreement.
Despite Trump's public criticism of reporters, Bolton's book was attributed to the US President by most of his speeches.
During a meeting in New Jersey in the summer of 2019, Trump said - according to Bolton's account - that journalists must be imprisoned in order to reveal their sources, "These people must be executed. They are scum," according to other excerpts published by the Washington Post.
In the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Bolton said that Trump's defense of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman was intended to divert attention from his daughter Ivanka using her private mail for government purposes.
Trump, on the other hand, said that Bolton broke the law by deciding to publish a book about his tenure at the White House, while White House spokeswoman Kylie McNanny described Bolton as a "misleading hawk" in foreign policy.
McNaney added in a tweet to her on Twitter that Bolton is in return a "weak pigeon" as a writer, noting that this was not mentioned by Bolton in his notebook that turned into a novel.
Criminal charges
She noted that Bolton described Trump as strong and accurate and will not repeat the mistakes of previous administrations, and that he is fully prepared and believes in the peace-to-power approach of President Ronald Reagan.
McNanny commented that she would leave it up to the media to ask why Bolton's words exposed his memoirs, she said.
In the same vein, American newspapers said that federal prosecutors are looking into the possibility of bringing criminal charges against Bolton.
The Los Angeles Times newspaper quoted sources as saying that internal discussions take place at the highest levels in the Ministry of Justice, with the participation of Minister William Barr.
She explained that the discussions dealt with Bolton's accusation of revealing classified classified information, and the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit with a federal judge demanding that Bolton not publish his prospectus on this month.
The ministry says that Bolton violated an agreement requiring that no information be disclosed about his work in the White House, and that the approval of the National Security Council should be obtained.
For his part, Bolton's lawyer explained that his client had worked for several months with National Security Council officials to remove classified information from the memos, and that the White House was using the review process as an excuse to impose oversight.
Bolton spent 17 months as a national security adviser at the White House before he resigned last September.
Bolton refused to testify during Trump's Senate trial with the aim of removing him last December, saying he would only do so if a judge forced him to do so.