Bolton stated in the manuscript that the President told him about his intention to continue freezing that $391 million in security aid to Ukraine until the nation’s officials helped with investigations into his political rivals including former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The issue is the focus of the impeachment trial against Trump.
On the Senate floor, Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow argued that Bolton’s revelations in the manuscript—even if it is true—is not an impeachable offense.
“Now, to be specific, you cannot impeach a president on an unsourced allegation, but what professor Dershowitz is saying is even if everything in there was true, it constitutionally doesn’t rise to that level,” said Sekulow, adding that the impeachment is “not a game of leaks and unsourced manuscripts.”
When the report about the manuscript came out On Monday, Trump denied Bolton’s claim in a series of tweets.
I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. With that being said, the…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2020
