President Donald Trump began his Monday the way he always does: He ate the remains of a baby goat that was leftover from the weekend, slogged around the White House looking for his pig’s blood and cilantro smoothie and then locked himself in his private bathroom where he rage tweeted about ex-national security adviser John Bolton.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Bolton is working on a book, The Room Where It Happened, in which Bolton, who is apparently a stunt queen who is also looking for a bag, claims that Trump withheld some $400 million aid package to Ukraine in exchange for launching an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump, of course, did what any self-respecting president would do, he took to Twitter to proclaim his innocence.
“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” Trump tweeted early Monday morning. “In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination.”
“If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book,” Trump claimed.
CNBC notes that Trump and Bolton have a bit of a tumultuous past as Bolton “left the White House in September amid a public dispute with the president over whether he resigned or was fired.”
The Times’ report on Bolton’s upcoming book comes as Democrats are fighting for the former White House official to testify during Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.
From CNBC:
Democratic House managers, led by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., laid out their case last week for Trump’s conviction and removal from office on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, both related to his Ukraine dealings. Trump’s legal team began their defense on Saturday and are set Monday to continue arguing that the president did nothing wrong.
Bolton had been asked to testify during the House impeachment inquiry, but he refused to appear before the Democrat-led committees leading the impeachment investigation. He was not subpoenaed then; the House Intelligence panel said in a Nov. 7 statement that “we have no interest in allowing the Administration to play rope-a-dope with us in the courts for months.”
In early January, however, Bolton said that he would testify in the Senate trial if he was subpoenaed by the Senate.
All of this seems mad suspect, considering that Bolton initially refused to testify (likely his book was still being written) and then he suddenly wants to testify (got to get that book promotion popping).
Because Trump doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, he falsely tweeted that “The Democrat controlled House never even asked John Bolton to testify.”
Don’t look for Bolton (who may or may not be related to famed singer Michael Bolton; I don’t care enough to Google it) to make any appearances at the Senate trial as the Republican-majority Senate seems hell-bent on conducting a trial without witnesses. They still have to vote on whether or not witnesses will be allowed to testify but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
“I think the timing of all of this is very very suspect” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who only speaks Fox News, said Monday. “We stand by exactly what we’ve been saying all along.”
Grisham is right. The timing is suspect because Bolton’s got books to sell and he can’t be bogged down with trying to save the American people from a dictator with little fingers and itching for Russian prostitute urine. Plus, Bolton will be hosting parties in and around the red states where ladies get in free before 10 and you have to call early for bottle service.
But is Bolton mad that the world is on fire? Nope. He’s just mad that his manuscript got leaked.
“It is clear, regrettably, from the New York Times article published today that the prepublication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript,” Bolton’s attorney said in a statement Sunday, CNBC reports.