Bolton Claims Trump Asked China's President For Favor To Boost Reelection Chances

President Donald Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win reelection in 2020 by purchasing agricultural products from key U.S. states, former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his new book.

During a Group of 20 summit meeting in Japan last summer, Trump was pleading with Xi to ensure hed win, Bolton wrote in a book excerpt published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.

Trump stressed the importance of farmers and of increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat to his electoral success, Bolton wrote. He added that he would have printed Trumps exact words, but the governments prepublication review process has decided otherwise.

Bolton added:

Trumps conversations with Xi reflected not only the incoherence in his trade policy but also the confluence in Trumps mind of his own political interests and U.S. national interests. Trump commingled the personal and the national not just on trade questions but across the whole field of national security. I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasnt driven by reelection calculations.

He said he reported such incidents to Attorney General William Barr and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, The New York Times reported .

Neither the Justice Department nor the White House immediately responded to HuffPosts requests for comment.

Reacting to Boltons highly anticipated memoir, The Room Where It Happened, Joe Biden , the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, blasted Trump in a statement.

If these accounts are true, its not only morally repugnant, its a violation of Donald Trumps sacred duty to the American people to protect Americas interests and defend our values, the former vice president said of Boltons allegation that Trump had sought Xis help to get reelected.

Biden also issued a warning to Chinas leaders or anyone else who President Trump might invite to interfere: Stay out of our democracy. Stay out of our elections. The American people alone will decide the future of this country, and I am confident in the choice they will make.

Bolton makes several startling revelations in his book, which is set to be released Tuesday.

According to the excerpt in the Journal, Trump also encouraged Xi to build camps to imprison Uighur Muslims in China. Bolton said Xi had told Trump during a 2019 G-20 meeting that he was basically building concentration camps to detain Uighurs.

Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do, Bolton wrote of the exchange, quoting an interpreter.

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Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 17, 2020

Bolton also wrote that Trump was willing to intervene in Justice Department investigations into Chinese and Turkish companies to curry personal favor with the countries autocratic leaders.

The Trump administration sued Bolton on Tuesday to block the publication of the book, arguing that it contains classified information. In response, Boltons attorney accused the White House of using national security information as a pretext to censor Bolton.

Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, served as Trumps national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. He resigned amid reports that he disagreed with Trump on certain foreign policy issues, including strategy on North Korea.

Trump claimed he fired Bolton, but Bolton has said this isnt true and that he was never directly or indirectly asked to resign.

In his book, Bolton bashed House Democrats for focusing too much on Trumps Ukraine dealings during the impeachment proceedings and not targeting the presidents other foreign policy debacles.

Democrats asked Bolton to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry, but he refused. He said he would testify during the Senate trial if he was issued a subpoena. The Republican-controlled Senate voted 51-49 against calling new witnesses and ultimately acquitted the president.

On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who led the prosecution in the impeachment trial, skewered Bolton over his refusal to testify before the House.

Bolton may be an author, but hes no patriot, Schiff wrote on Twitter.

Boltons staff were asked to testify before the House to Trumps abuses, and did. They had a lot to lose and showed real courage.

When Bolton was asked, he refused, and said hed sue if subpoenaed. Instead, he saved it for a book.

Bolton may be an author, but hes no patriot.

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Boltons staff were asked to testify before the House to Trumps abuses, and did. They had a lot to lose and showed real courage.

When Bolton was asked, he refused, and said hed sue if subpoenaed. Instead, he saved it for a book.

Bolton may be an author, but hes no patriot.
Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) June 17, 2020

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that the revelations in Boltons book validated House Democrats vote to impeach Trump and cast a harsh light on Senate Republicans subsequent decision to acquit him.

It was clear then and could not be any clearer now: the vote to convict and remove Donald Trump from office was absolutely the right vote, Schumer wrote. The revelations in Mr. Boltons book make Senate Republicans craven actions on impeachment look even worse and history will judge them for it.