Charlie Dent writes, “Congress should immediately subpoena Bolton to appear before the Foreign Affairs and Judiciary Committees and ask him about the allegations detailed in his book, ‘The Room Where it Happened.'”
Republican Charlie Dent is a former US congressman from Pennsylvania who served as chairman of the House Ethics Committee from 2015 until 2016. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
If nothing else, former national security adviser John Bolton is a colorful figure. Love him or hate him, Bolton is a smart lawyer and skillful bureaucratic infighter with a well-defined worldview. An assertive neoconservative with a reputation for being a national security hawk, Bolton has often crossed swords with the foreign policy establishment and is not known for playing well with others.
Now that Bolton’s bombshell of a book has detonated, how should Congress and the American people respond to the stunning revelations about President Donald Trump’s misconduct?
Congress should immediately subpoena Bolton to appear before the Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees and ask him about the allegations detailed in his book, “The Room Where it Happened.” After impetuously imposing tariffs on Chinese products without much consideration for the inevitable retaliation, Trump groveled before Chinese President Xi Jinping and asked China to purchase soybeans and wheat to help American farmers — and his election prospects, according to the book.
While they’re at it, lawmakers should ask Bolton about his claims that the President approved of the Chinese concentration camps in Xinjiang to “re-educate” 1 million Uighur Muslims.
