Bolton book says House impeachment inquiry should have probed Trump beyond Ukraine

• Trump did not know Britain was a nuclear power, asked if Finland was part of Russia, Bolton writes.
• Intelligence briefings were a waste of time, “since much of the time was spent listening to Trump, rather than Trump listening to the briefers.”
• During Trump’s 2018 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to John Bolton's book, Sec State Mike Pompeo slipped Bolton a little note dissing the president: “He is so full of shit.”

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton's new book says the House impeachment inquiry should have investigated Donald Trump not only for abusing his political power in Ukraine, but for other instances when Trump intervened in law enforcement matters for personal gain.

John Bolton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, 2006. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The Justice Department is suing Bolton to block release of the book.

The book, “The Room Where It Happened,” was obtained by The New York Times “in advance of its scheduled publication next Tuesday and has already become a political lightning rod in the thick of an election campaign and a No. 1 best seller on Amazon.com even before it hits the bookstores,” writes Peter Baker at the New York Times:

Mr. Bolton describes several episodes where the president expressed 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, adding that he reported his concerns to Attorney General William P. Barr.

Mr. Bolton also adds a striking new allegation by saying that Mr. Trump overtly linked trade negotiations to his own political fortunes by asking President Xi Jinping of China to buy a lot of American agricultural products to help him win farm states in this year’s election. Mr. Trump, he writes, was “pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”

(…) The Justice Department filed a last-minute lawsuit against Mr. Bolton this week seeking to stop publication even as Mr. Trump’s critics complained that Mr. Bolton should have come forward during impeachment proceedings rather than save his account for a $2 million book contract.

Never forget, Bolton was involved in Cambridge Analytica.

Trump administration sues John Bolton to block publication of new book that claims presidential misconduct