Bolton Book Claims He Was Ordered by Trump to Extract Damaging Info on Democrats from Ukraine

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President Donald Trump allegedly ordered former national security advisor John Bolton to aid his campaign to “extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials,” months before the infamous Trump-Ukraine call, in a meeting that allegedly included White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and impeachment defense team leader Pat Cipollone.

According to the New York Times, which cited the unpublished manuscript of Bolton’s upcoming book, “More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton” to “help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials.”

In the manuscript, Bolton reportedly claims that President Trump issued the order during a May conversation in the Oval Office “that included” Mulvaney, Giuliani, and Cipollone.

“Mr. Trump told Mr. Bolton to call Volodymyr Zelensky, who had recently won election as president of Ukraine, to ensure Mr. Zelensky would meet with Mr. Giuliani, who was planning a trip to Ukraine to discuss the investigations that the president sought, in Mr. Bolton’s account,” the Times reported, adding that “Mr. Bolton never made the call.”

Giuliani denied the allegation, calling it “absolutely, categorically untrue.”

As noted by the New York Times, the order “would be the earliest known instance of Mr. Trump seeking to harness the power of the United States government to advance his pressure campaign against Ukraine, as he later did on the July call with Mr. Zelensky that triggered a whistle-blower complaint and impeachment proceedings.”