Bolton Book Manuscript Reveals Trump Directly Tied Ukraine Aid to Biden Investigation

The New York Times obtained portions of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s unpublished book manuscript on January 26, 2020, revealing that President Trump explicitly told Bolton in August 2019 that he wanted to continue freezing military aid to Ukraine until Ukrainian officials announced investigations into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The timing was explosive—the revelation came in the middle of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, just days before senators would vote on whether to call Bolton as a witness. Bolton’s account provided direct, first-hand testimony from Trump’s longest-serving National Security Advisor that Trump tied official acts to personal political favors—the precise abuse of power at the heart of the impeachment.

Background

Bolton’s manuscript, titled “The Room Where It Happened,” detailed multiple conversations where Trump made clear that military aid was conditioned on Ukraine publicly announcing Biden investigations. According to the manuscript, Trump told Bolton in an August meeting that he preferred to continue holding the $391 million in aid until Zelensky committed to investigating the Bidens. This directly contradicted Trump’s repeated claims that there was “no quid pro quo” and that he never linked aid to investigations. Bolton also described Attorney General William Barr being involved in Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign and detailed how Trump sought to use the Justice Department for personal political purposes.

The manuscript corroborated testimony from career diplomats and national security officials who testified during the House impeachment inquiry. Bolton described a July 10, 2019 White House meeting where EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland told Ukrainian officials they needed to deliver investigations to get a White House meeting, prompting Bolton to end the meeting and tell Fiona Hill that “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.” Bolton also told Hill to report the Ukraine pressure campaign to NSC lawyers, demonstrating that senior officials recognized the scheme’s impropriety in real-time.

Bolton had refused to testify during the House impeachment inquiry, following Trump’s blanket obstruction directive. However, he signaled through his lawyer that he would testify if subpoenaed by the Senate. The manuscript leak put immense pressure on Senate Republicans to call Bolton as a witness—here was Trump’s own National Security Advisor, a lifelong conservative hawk, confirming the core allegations that Trump had denied. Senate Democrats immediately renewed their calls for witnesses, arguing Bolton’s account made a trial without testimony a sham.

Significance

Bolton’s manuscript represented the most damaging evidence yet of Trump’s abuse of power—direct testimony from a senior administration official, Trump appointee, and conservative foreign policy figure that Trump explicitly conditioned aid on political investigations. The evidence was so clear that even some Republican senators, including Mitt Romney and Susan Collins, indicated they might vote to call Bolton as a witness. However, the revelation also exposed the hypocrisy of Bolton’s position: he possessed critical evidence of presidential misconduct but refused to provide it during the House investigation, saving it for a book he planned to profit from.

The manuscript’s leak during the Senate trial created a constitutional crisis within a constitutional crisis. Republicans faced a choice: vote to hear from Bolton and risk confirming Trump’s impeachable conduct, or vote to block witnesses and make clear they were conducting a cover-up. The manuscript made the witness vote—scheduled for January 31—a direct test of whether Senate Republicans would prioritize constitutional duty or partisan loyalty. Bolton’s willingness to testify if subpoenaed eliminated the excuse that he might claim executive privilege.

Trump’s legal team dismissed Bolton’s account as false and irrelevant, while Trump himself attacked Bolton on Twitter as a disgruntled former employee seeking book sales. This response effectively accused Bolton—a conservative icon and Trump’s own handpicked National Security Advisor—of perjury, demonstrating how thoroughly the defense required rejecting all factual evidence. The Senate would vote 51-49 against witnesses on the same day the manuscript story broke, with only Romney and Collins breaking ranks. This decision to hold an impeachment trial without hearing from the key witness who had first-hand knowledge of the president’s conduct established that Senate Republicans would protect Trump regardless of evidence, finalizing the collapse of impeachment as an accountability mechanism.