John Bolton hit back today at a White House bid to block his explosive tell-all book about Donald Trump as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted the former national security adviser as “a traitor who damaged America”.
In court papers filed this morning, Mr Bolton accused the Trump administration of trying to stop him publishing “embarrassing facts” that could hurt the President in an election year.
Leaked revelations from the book, The Room Where It Happened, include claims that Mr Trump didn’t know that Britain was a nuclear power, asked if Finland was part of Russia, and pleaded with China to boost his re-election chances by agreeing a trade deal to buy more American farm goods.
Mr Pompeo joined other Trump loyalists in dismissing his former West Wing colleague’s allegations.
“I’ve not read the book, but from the excerpts I’ve seen published, John Bolton is spreading a number of lies, fully spun half-truths, and outright falsehoods,” he said in a statement.
“It is both sad and dangerous that John Bolton’s final public role is that of a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people. To our friends around the world: you know that President Trump’s America is a force for good in the world,” he added.
In the book, Mr Bolton claims the Secretary of State disparaged the President in private. According to excerpts reported in the US media, after a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore in 2018 Mr Pompeo said of Mr Trump, “he is so full of shit”. Mr Bolton also claims Mr Pompeo told him the summit had “zero probability of success”.
Mr Trump has branded his former aide, axed as national security adviser last September after 17 months in the job, a “wacko”, and claimed he should face criminal charges for using classified information in the book.
Federal district judge Royce Lamberth will rule today on whether to stop next Tuesday’s planned publication of the memoir, which is already a pre-release bestseller on Amazon.
Mr Bolton, said to have been paid $2 million (£1.6 million) to write the book, argued in court filings that he has not breached any state secrets and that stopping the book would violate his constitutional right to free speech. He said: “The government does not have the power to clasp its hand over the mouth of a citizen attempting to speak on a matter of great public import.”
