Former National Security Advisor John Bolton says President Donald Trump is unfit and lacks the “competence” to be the President of the United States.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agrees with Bolton’s view of Trump, but she blasted him for not testifying during the impeachment effort late last year.
“President Trump is clearly ethically unfit and intellectually unprepared to be the President of the United States,” Pelosi said during her weekly press conference on Thursday.
“It didn’t seem to matter to John Bolton. He chose loyalty over patriotism. And so he’s going to make money off of his book I guess,” she added.
Watch the video below:
Asked about John Bolton's upcoming book, Pelosi says Trump is "clearly ethically unfit and intellectually unprepared to be the president" but that "didn't seem to matter" to Bolton during the impeachment proceedings: "He chose loyalty over patriotism" https://t.co/Nj065CIsxp pic.twitter.com/uzzA9zN6yj
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 18, 2020
Pelosi’s comments come after excerpts of Bolton’s forthcoming book, “The Room Where It Happened,” were released on Wednesday afternoon. In his book, Bolton claims Trump was solely focused on re-election and that he asked China for help in the presidential election.
Additionally, Bolton claimed that the House should have investigated Trump for a host of other potentially criminal offenses.
When asked if she would like Bolton to testify, or if the House would subpoena him, Pelosi said, “Well, it’s interesting because he was so arrogant in terms of the House when we were engaged in the impeachment. We did impeach the President of the United States.”
However, Pelosi noted that the Republican-controlled Senate would have to vote to remove Trump from office and that many Republican senators have said “there’s nothing that John Bolton has put forth that would change their mind about removing the president from office.”
Bolton did not testify during the House’s impeachment proceedings. But after the House approved two articles of impeachment against Trump, Bolton said he would testify in the Senate trial if he received a subpoena.
During the Senate trial, a portion of Bolton’s book was published in The New York Times. In that excerpt, Bolton said that Trump directly ordered that military aid to Ukraine be put on hold until Ukrainian officials agreed to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden (D) and his son Hunter Biden, as IJR reported.
Despite mounting pressure to call Bolton as a witness in the trial — which centered on whether Trump inappropriately withheld aid to Ukraine for political gain — the Senate rejected a push to call Bolton or any other witnesses.
Bolton’s decision against voluntarily testifying in the House has drawn the ire of many who claimed Bolton withheld potentially damaging information from Congress but put it in his book to drive sales.
Now, as portions of Bolton’s book are being released, Democrats are voicing their frustration, again, that Bolton allegedly witnessed impropriety but did not inform Congress.
In December 2019, Trump was impeached in the House for obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. However, the Senate voted to acquit him of both charges in early-February.
