Former national security adviser John Bolton has leveled a stunning accusation against his former boss, claiming in his new book that President Donald Trump personally asked his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to help him win the 2020 US presidential election, according to a copy obtained by...
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Bolton book bombshells: Trump asked China's Xi for reelection help and told him to keep building concentration camps
Washington (CNN)Former national security adviser John Bolton has leveled a stunning accusation against his former boss, claiming in his new book that President Donald Trump personally asked his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to help him win the 2020 US presidential election, according to a copy obtained by CNN Wednesday.
Bolton also charged that when Xi told Trump last year that China was building concentration camps for the mass detention of Uyghur Muslims, Trump said Xi should go ahead building the camps, "which he thought was exactly the right thing to do."
At another meeting during last year's G-20 Summit in Osaka, Bolton writes Trump "stunningly" turned the conversation to the upcoming 2020 election. The former national security adviser said Trump "stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome," adding that he "would print Trump's exact words, but the government's prepublication review process has decided otherwise."
Bolton said the conversation turned back to the trade deal, and Trump "proposed that for the remaining $350 billion of trade imbalances (by Trump's arithmetic), the US would not impose tariffs, but he again returned to importuning Xi to buy as many American farm products as China could."
"He is a liar," Trump told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, adding that "everybody in the White House hated John Bolton."
He told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an interview that Bolton disclosed "highly classified information."
"And he did not have approval," Trump said.
The allegation that Trump asked the leader of a major US adversary to help him win the next election will reverberate across Washington six months after Trump was impeached on charges he sought help from Ukraine with his reelection bid. Trump openly asked China to investigate his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden last year, and has refused to accept the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to try to help him win.
The claims come as the Trump campaign has tried to make China a central issue of the 2020 election, framing the President as tougher on Beijing than Biden.
The interactions with Xi were just some of the unflattering details about Trump contained in Bolton's book, titled "In the Room Where it Happened." Bolton also writes that Trump directly connected US security aid to Ukraine with an investigation into his presumptive 2020 opponent -- the key allegation in the Democrats' impeachment case -- and accuses Trump repeatedly of lying.
Legal battle escalates
The book has been subject to a months-long legal battle between the White House and the former national security adviser.
The fight escalated Tuesday after the Trump administration went to court to try to claw back Bolton's earnings for the book and to potentially stop its publication, arguing in a lawsuit that Bolton had breached non-disclosure agreements and was risking national security by exposing classified information.
But the White House's legal action has done little to stop details from Bolton's book from becoming public as CNN and other media outlets reported Wednesday that they obtained advanced copies. It's scheduled for official release next week.
The Justice Department asked a judge Wednesday for emergency help to stop Bolton's book publication, taking another last-ditch step in court to ramp up pressure on the former national security adviser the week before his bombshell book is released to the public.
Several top intelligence and national security officials submitted sworn statements to the judge about classified information in Bolton's book, amounting to an extraordinary level of firepower in the Justice Department's latest emergency filing in court.
The officials, including Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, and Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center William Evanina, wrote in affidavits that the book still contained classified information.
In a letter sent to the White House last week, Bolton's lawyer, Charles Cooper, accused the White House of seeking to block the book for "purely political reasons," adding that "as a practical matter, (it) comes too late."
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