'It Was Very Disturbing': Former National Security Advisor John Bolton Claims Donald Trump Was 'Obsessed' With Collecting Classified Material
June 19 2023, Published 8:00 a.m. ET
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton recently claimed that Donald Trump was “obsessed” with collecting classified material during the embattled ex-president’s single term in the White House, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a concerning development to come shortly after Trump was arrested in Miami and arraigned on 37 counts connected to his retention of classified documents after leaving office in January 2021, Bolton claimed he witnessed the former president’s alleged classified material obsession firsthand.
“I think he was kind of a collector of things that he thought were of interest to him for some reason or another. Clippings, mementos, classified documents,” Bolton told Psaki this weekend. “It was very disturbing.”
“We could see in the course of meetings with him, intelligence briefings, decision meetings that sometimes he liked to retain things,” the former National Security Advisor continued. “And it became the practice just to make sure that we got them back in as many cases as we could.”
“Obviously, we failed in many cases, but it was a pattern evident to me from early on.”
Bolton also cited one infamous incident in particular where Trump tweeted a series of classified documents connected to a failed Iranian missile launch in August 2019.
"The United States of America was not involved in the catastrophic accident during final launch preparations for the Safir SLV Launch at Semnan Launch Site One in Iran," Trump wrote on Twitter on August 30, 2019, alongside a classified U.S. reconnaissance satellite photo.
"I wish Iran best wishes and good luck in determining what happened at Site One,” the then-president added.
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Bolton said the incident was particularly “disturbing” and that there was “no conceivable reason” why a sitting U.S. president would publicly post classified information provided by intelligence officials.
“There’s no conceivable reason for that, except it made him feel good to be able to do it,” Bolton told Psaki. “That’s one example. But it’s typical of the mindset, in my view.”
