He’s doing ABC interview Sunday night
I’m torn. I really don’t want to give this jerk money, but I really want to read this book.
I’m hoping pirated copies will show up somewhere.
Library?
It will be summarized and discussed quite a lot, I imagine. I decided to send $17 to NAACP instead.
It could suffer the same fate as other “tell-all” books that generate early buzz but fade quickly. The ongoing controversy over its publication (last time I looked, CFSG was still trying to block it) might keep it topical; on the other hand, it may hit the remainders rack fairly soon,
Barr and Trump attempting to bar publication might Streisand it right onto the bestseller list.
+1
According to the WaPo article, “Bolton’s book would establish a quid pro quo linking Ukraine security assistance to Ukraine helping to smear former vice president Joe Biden.”
I wish he had testified to that effect, even though I *still *don’t think that would have persuaded 20 R senators to vote to convict. However, the book should at least help refute any Biden-Ukraine nonsense the Trump camp tries to bring up as the election nears. Yes, his base will still buy it, but no one else will.
Trump suing Bolton over the book
It seems to be the case that about 4 days ago the publisher’s lawyers decided that they could win a suit over classification, if a judge looked at what was actually said in the book, despite White House objections.
At that point in time, I would think that they would want to ensure that the book can’t be blocked from distribution nor end up in legal hell. The best way to ensure that is to render the topic moot by making sure that a few copies have been sent out to journalists before a judge can order a halt.
Given that it doesn’t take 4 days to mail a book from the publisher’s NY HQ to a news journal in New York, minus asking FedEx to not deliver for a few days, I’d estimate that they figured they’ll spend the week suffering legal threats from Team Trump - helping to advertise the book - have the books arrive at the newspapers on Saturday or Sunday, get 1-2 days worth of explosive revelations out there, and then have Bolton go on TV to talk about it just as it’s peaking on Sunday.
Or, at least, that would be my hope.
As a condition of getting the free publicity involved in each and every interview, Bolton should have to agree to an introduction that includes the fact that he could have testified in the impeachment hearings, but chose not to.
Viewers/listeners can draw their own conclusions about Bolton’s relative personality-component levels of patriotism versus greed.
Bolton all but begged the Democrats to subpoena him. As I recall, he was trying to get himself added to the trial of that other guy to get Congress the right to question people under a White House order to not talk.
On the other hand, Pelosi and Schiff kneecapped themselves about as much as humanly possible. And, realistically, the only reason for them to have done so was because they thought it was more useful to use the event as a fundraising venture rather than make any real attempt at prosecuting the case.
Unless you believe that Schiff was the world’s worst prosecutor to ever walk the Earth and somehow Pelosi never noticed that his head was full of sand then, until you’re ready to throw them two under the bus, Bolton is still in the clear so far as blame goes.
I think the book will show that Bolton has nothing of value to add to the impeachment trial. All he could do was corroborate what was already corroborated by other credible witnesses and Trump’s own words on a transcript. What Pelosi and Schiff chose to do was not give Bolton additional publicity. I suspect nothing in this book will be in any way revelatory. The lawsuit is simply meant to try to shield Trump from more negative publicity and for Trump to be an annoyance to Bolton. Trump’s entire life is filled with displays of vindictive pettiness of one type or another against those who fail to show him the obsequious adoration he craves… (No, Mike Pence, your daily to licking of Trump’s ass isn’t until 11am. We know you’re eager to get started but Bill Barr is with him right now.)
I agree there won’t be much new in it but we will find out Sunday. It’s almost 600 pages .
This times 1000. If your defense is “It wasn’t a crime and if it was a crime, it wasn’t an impeachable offense”, it really doesn’t matter what witnesses say.
Bob Woodward has a Trump book out in Sept. Trump talked to him for this one.
The buzz about the book seems to indicate otherwise. Apparently Bolton will tell of Trump’s misconduct with other countries. I hope some court doesn’t block it. I won’t buy it but I’m gonna find a way to read it.
NY 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,”
From FOX News
Former national security adviser John Bolton alleges in his upcoming 592-page memoir that President Trump regularly gives “personal favors to dictators he liked,” backed the idea of more concentration camps in China, and asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him in the 2020 election, according to excerpts obtained and published by several media outlets.
Trump also apparently was unaware that Britain is a nuclear power and asked whether Finland is part of Russia, according to Bolton – who also claimed that during Trump’s 2018 visit to North Korea, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo handed Bolton a note saying of Trump, “He is so full of sh–."
And he is right about this-
“Had Democratic impeachment advocates not been so obsessed with their Ukraine blitzkrieg in 2019, had they taken the time to inquire more systematically about Trump’s behavior across his entire foreign policy, the impeachment outcome might well have been different,” Bolton wrote."
Trump is such a blatantly overt, greasily-begging character that he’d be fascinating to read about if it weren’t so awfully destructive.