But Bolton has also faced backlash from critics for his refusal to testify in the House’s impeachment inquiry. He said he wanted to wait to see if a judge would rule if he could testify despite White House objections.
He offered to testify during the Senate’s trial of Trump’s impeachment. Republicans who control the chamber voted not to hear from him before acquitting the President.
The New York Times reported that Bolton also wrote that Trump said he was willing to stop US criminal probes “to, in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked,” citing cases involving China’s ZTE Corp. and Turkey’s Halkbank. Bolton writes the President sought to seek favor with Xi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan through the offers.
“The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,” Bolton writes, according to the Times, adding that he expressed his concern directly to Attorney General William Barr and White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
Bloomberg News reported last October that Erdogan made multiple appeals to Trump to avoid charges against Halkbank, one of Turkey’s biggest lenders. Trump assigned Barr and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to look into the issue after an April phone conversation with Erdogan.
No action was taken for months after the call, but US prosecutors released an undated indictment in October accusing the bank of fraud, money laundering and violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.- Fortune
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