Bolton on DOJ report Trump tried to destroy evidence: ‘He thinks he can do whatever he wants’

Former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday said former President Trump’s response to the most recent charges in the classified documents case show that “he thinks he can do whatever he wants.”

Bolton, in an interview with CNN, also joked that his former boss should have taken lessons from previous scandals in Washington, but argued “Trump doesn’t learn much very quickly.”

“It’s classic conventional wisdom now in Washington that the cover up is always the most vulnerable point,” the former White House official said. “Trump doesn’t learn much very quickly. He obviously didn’t learn much about prior Washington scandals.”

His comments come just one day after the Justice Department (DOJ) accused Trump and his aides of trying to delete surveillance footage from his Mar-a-Lago resort in a superseding indictment — adding three additional charges in the classified documents probe. The former president is already facing 37 counts in relation to the mishandling of records and his efforts to block the government from recovering the documents.  

While Bolton claimed that the new charges would be significant in trial, he also suggested that Trump’s mindset likely wouldn’t change.

“His belief that constraints, rules, procedures didn’t apply to him if he wanted to do something different is manifest throughout the original indictment,” Bolton said of Trump’s previous charges under the Espionage Act. “This is a pretty straightforward addition in the superseding indictment. It does demonstrate his mindset; He thinks he can do whatever he wants.”

Trump on Thursday called the new indictment “ridiculous,” and claimed it only amounts to “election interference at the highest level.”

Bolton said his response demonstrates his default position: “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,” the former official argued. “I think in this case, so far at least, I think the prosecutors have shown they are way ahead of him.”

“We haven’t seen all of their evidence, by any stretch of the imagination. I suspect there are a few surprises in there,” he added.