US President Donald Trump looked for help from Chinese President Xi Jinping to win re-election, ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton’s new book says.
Mr. Bolton says Mr. Trump needed China to purchase agricultural produce from US farmers, according to details of the forthcoming book previewed by US media.
He likewise says Mr. Trump “remained stunningly uninformed on the best way to run the White House”.
The Trump administration is trying to block the book from hitting shelves.
Addressing Fox News Mr. Trump said of Mr. Bolton: “He overstepped the law. This is highly classified information and he didn’t have approval.”
“He was a cleaned up guy,” the president included. “I gave him a chance.”
John Bolton joined the White House in April 2018 and left in September the next year, saying he had chosen to stop as a national security adviser. President Trump, in any case, said he had terminated Mr. Bolton in light of the fact that he dissented “strongly” with him.
His 577-page tome, The Room Where It Happened, is due to go on sale on 23 June.
In any case, on Wednesday night, the Department of Justice sought an emergency order form a judge to stop the book’s release.
The distributer, Simon and Schuster, said in an announcement: “Tonight’s filing by the government is a frivolous, politically propelled pointless futility.”
It said a huge number of duplicates of the book have just been dispersed far and wide and the order would accomplish nothing.
Mr. Trump’s Democratic challenger in this November’s election, Joe Biden, said in a statement about the book: “If these accounts are true, it’s not only morally repugnant, it’s a violation of Donald Trump’s sacred duty to the American people.”
What Does Bolton Claim About The Meeting With Xi?
The allegations refer to a meeting between President Trump and President Xi at the G20 culmination in Osaka, Japan, in June a year ago.
“Trump, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential political race [in 2020], implying China’s monetary capacity and begging Xi to guarantee he’d win,” Mr. Bolton wrote.
“He stressed the importance of farmers and expanded Chinese acquisition of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”
Farmers make up a key voting bloc and to a great extent upheld Mr. Trump in the 2016 political race.
Speaking on Wednesday evening, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer questioned Mr. Bolton’s record, saying the solicitation for help with re-election “never happened”.
Mr. Bolton likewise mentions an earlier conversation at the summit’s opening dinner, where they talked about the structure of camps in China’s western Xinjiang region.
Mr. Trump said the construction should go proceed as it might have been “exactly the right thing to do”.
China has confined around a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the camps for punishment and indoctrination.
The Trump organization has been openly condemning of China’s treatment of Uighurs, and on Wednesday the president signed legislation authorizing US sanctions against Chinese authorities answerable for the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang province.
China denies mistreating Uighurs and assaulted the US move, calling it malicious and undermining countermeasures.