Trump Rips John Bolton, Says Former National Security Adviser Should Go To Jail Over Memoir

President Trump on Tuesday said former National Security Adviser John Bolton should be jailed for revealing "classified information" after Bolton published a memoir about his time in the Trump administration. Bolton’s book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," makes multiple allegations of potential misconduct.

“I fired him. And I didn’t think it was a big deal. And I wasn’t around him very much,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News.

“But what he did do is he took classified information, and he published it during a presidency,” Trump continued. “I believe that he’s a criminal, and I believe, frankly, he should go to jail for that.”

Prior to the book’s official publication Tuesday, Trump filed a lawsuit with the District Court for the District of Columbia blocking the memoir’s release. The Department of Justice claimed the book was a national security risk because it allegedly breached agreements Bolton made while in the administration.

The Court struck down the lawsuit on Saturday, but a federal judge said the book “raises grave national security concerns.”

"While Bolton's unilateral conduct raises grave national security concerns, the government has not established that an injunction is an appropriate remedy. For reasons that hardly need to be stated, the Court will not order nationwide seizure and destruction of a political memoir,” U.S. federal judge Royce C. Lamberth said. Lamberth was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan.

The DOJ is now exploring whether Bolton should be charged over the book.

“He likes dropping bombs on people, and killing them. Now he will have bombs dropped on him!” Trump said about possible criminal charges for Bolton.

In his memoir, Bolton claimed that Trump asked for reelection help from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Bolton also backs up the impeachment claim that Trump froze security assistance for Ukraine in exchange for investigations into Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

Bolton claimed that Trump was willing to drop a criminal investigation into Turkey’s Halkbank as a favor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The book reveals that Trump was willing to influence a probe into Chinese telecom giant ZTE as a favor to China’s Xi.

Bolton noted that Trump has a stunning lack of knowledge of foreign affairs and cited how Trump once asked if Finland is a part of Russia. Trump also wanted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to give North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a copy of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” album after Trump and Kim met for a denuclearization summit in Singapore in June 2018.

Bolton served as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 before leaving over foreign policy disagreements. A conservative hawk, Bolton has advocated for regime change in Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea. Bolton's views conflicted with Trump’s non-interventionist “America First” approach.

Under President George W. Bush, Bolton served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006. Bolton is a strong critic of the U.N., as he believes the international body infringes on American sovereignty.