Former Bolton chief of staff: Iran incident disproves his book

John Bolton (Wikimedia Commons)

The incident John Bolton describes as the "turning point" in his relationship with President Trump undercuts the premise of the former national security adviser's blockbuster book, contends a former national security council chief of staff.

Bolton contends in "The Room Where it Happened," due for release next week, that nearly every significant foreign policy decision Trump made was motivated by his reelection.

But Fred Fleitz, who served as Bolton's chief of staff, said in an interview Thursday with Fox News' Martha MacCallum that the "turning point" itself shows otherwise.

The incident was Trump's decision at the last minute not to bomb Iran after the Islamic regime shot down a U.S. drone.

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The president was concerned that the U.S. would have killed 100 to 200 people.

"I thought that was a principled decision," Fleitz said. "This wasn't to win votes, this wasn't to promote the president domestically."

Fleitz, a former CIA analyst, served as the chief of staff and the executive secretary of the National Security Council from May through October 2018.

He said the decision not to bomb Iran "reflected the president's principle not to get America into additional wars."

It also was an act of leadership, he added, because Trump "bucked all of his national security advisers."

"When we hear that the president doesn't have principles [and] he's not qualified to lead, this incident that Bolton puts forward as the turning point for his relationship with President Trump -- in my mind, it disproves the whole book," Fleitz said.

Fleitz said that unlike Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others, Bolton couldn't figure out how to work with an "unconventional president."

"The job of these senior advisers is to work with the president, not to fight with them and implement his policies," Fleitz said. "And I'm very sorry that John Bolton couldn't figure out how to do that."

On Thursday, Pompeo challenged the veracity of Bolton's book, condemning him as "a traitor who damaged America."

"It is both sad and dangerous that John Bolton's final public role is that of a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people," he said in a statement.

The White House has filed a lawsuit to block release of the book, claiming it contains classified information.

A preview of the book released last week by publisher Simon & Schuster said Bolton "argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy." Bolton's main charge appears to be that nearly every "significant Trump decision" during his tenure was "driven by re-election calculations."

However, as WND reported, the Senate in January didn't think the president's "transgressions" in Ukraine were impeachable. And Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz specifically rebutted the Democrats' claim that the president should be impeached because he would benefit politically if Ukraine announced an investigation of alleged corruption by a potential rival in the 2020 election, Joe Biden.