Former Trump administration National Security Advisor John Bolton said Friday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that Donald Trump has been indicted for the cover-up of classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago because he “doesn’t learn” from history.
Bolton said, “I think his disdain for the importance of classification and protecting classified information is pretty clearly established. His belief that constraints, rules, procedures didn’t apply to him if he wanted to do something different is manifest throughout the original indictment. This is a pretty straightforward addition in the superseding indictment. It does demonstrate his mindset; He thinks he can do whatever he wants.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “Trump could have handed back the highly classified documents when requested.”
Bolton said, “It’s classic conventional wisdom now in Washington that the cover-up is always the most vulnerable point. Trump doesn’t learn much very quickly. He obviously didn’t learn much about prior Washington scandals, because the cover-up is obviously now a major part of the charge in this documents case.”
Blitzer said, “If he was trying to destroy evidence, that’s a major — that’s obviously a huge crime. It’s a felony, a serious felony, potentially resulting in years and years in prison.”
Bolton added, “Trump’s default position is if you are caught in a difficult situation, lie about it. Just make things up and hope that you can get away with it. His record, unfortunately, demonstrates over time he has been pretty good at getting away from things. I think in this case, so far at least, I think the prosecutors have shown they are way ahead of him. And, we haven’t seen all of their evidence, by any stretch of the imagination. I suspect there are a few surprises in there.”
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