John Bolton, the former national security adviser who is a key figure in the Ukraine scandal and impeachment inquiry, has a book deal.

The hawkish Bush-era veteran, Trump’s third national security adviser, left the White House in September over disagreements with the president. According to the Associated Press, which cited three publishing officials with knowledge of negotiations, he reached his book deal over the past few weeks with Simon & Schuster.

Two of the officials said the deal was worth about $2m. Bolton was represented by the Javelin literary agency, whose clients include the former FBI director James Comey and the anonymous Trump administration official whose book, A Warning, comes out on 19 November.

Bolton’s name has come up often recently during the House impeachment inquiry, which has focused on Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate his potential 2020 election rival Joe Biden, the former vice-president.

In a transcript of a closed-door interview released on Friday, a former national security official described how Bolton “immediately stiffened” as EU ambassador Gordon Sondland “blurted out” that he had worked out a trade – a Ukrainian investigation for an Oval Office welcome for Ukraine’s new president – with Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney.

Fiona Hill said Bolton later told her “I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up” and asked her to relay that message to a White House lawyer.

A letter from Bolton’s attorney to the top lawyer for the House on Friday said Bolton was “part of many relevant meetings and conversations” pertaining to the House impeachment inquiry that are not yet public.

The attorney, Charles Cooper, suggested Bolton would appear before Congress only if a judge orders him to do so.

On Saturday, Bloomberg News reported that Bolton was involved in freeing up part of nearly $400m in military aid to Ukraine allegedly frozen as part of the quid pro quo with Kyiv.

According to the report, which cited five anonymous sources, “President Donald Trump says he lifted his freeze on aid to Ukraine on 11 September, but the state department had quietly authorized releasing $141m … several days earlier.”

The reported added: “Shortly before 9 September, Bolton had relayed a message to the state department that the funding could go ahead. It’s not clear whether Bolton, who resigned from the job a week later, did so with Trump’s approval.

“Bolton’s handling of the funding struck officials in the White House as violating protocol and caught Mulvaney by surprise.”

A spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, formerly headed by Mulvaney, told Bloomberg Bolton could not have acted that way.

Bloomberg posited that the aid issue could explain the letter from Bolton’s lawyer.



The publishing officials who spoke to the Associated Press about Bolton’s book deal did not know the title or release date. Simon & Schuster and Javelin did not comment.

Bolton’s 2007 book, Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad, was published by the conservative Simon & Schuster imprint Threshold Editions.

Appointed in April 2018, Bolton was Trump’s third national security adviser and is known for advocating military action abroad, a viewpoint Trump has resisted.

For example, in a speech in late September to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, given after he left the administration, Bolton offered a far more aggressive approach to North Korea’s nuclear program than the one advocated by Trump, who has spoken warmly about the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

“Every day that goes by makes North Korea a more dangerous country,” Bolton said. “You don’t like their behavior today, what do you think it will be when they have nuclear weapons that can be delivered to American cities?”