John Bolton: Intelligence officials ‘failed in many cases’ in not getting classified docs back from Trump 

Trump-era national security advisor John Bolton said on Sunday that officials responsible for briefing the president on intelligence matters “failed in many cases” by not getting some classified documents back from former President Trump.

Bolton is among a list of former White House officials who have been vocal in criticizing their former boss over an indictment that alleges Trump mishandled classified documents and obstructed justice in keeping the records from being returned to the government.

As national security adviser, Bolton briefed Trump on intelligence matters. He now acknowledges Trump’s tendency to want to hold on to sensitive materials and that officials didn’t always get them back.

“I think he was kind of a collector of things that he thought were of interest to him for some reason or another, clippings, momentous, classified documents,” he said on “MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.” “And it was very disturbing.”

“We could see in the course of meetings within intelligence briefings, decision meetings, that sometimes he liked to retain things, and it became the practice, just to make sure that we got them back, and as many cases as we could,” he added. “Obviously, we failed in many cases. But it was a pattern that was evident to me from sort of my earliest days.”

Bolton cited a Trump tweet during his time in office in which the former president referred to a map of a failed Iranian missile strike that experts said contained sensitive information. Trump tweeted a photo of the site of a failed satellite launch in Iran in 2019, which Trump claimed he had the “absolute right” to do.

“Well, there were some that we did get back. Others, the most famous, to me, it demonstrates why I don’t need to read the indictment or believe its allegations are true, although I’m pretty confident they are, was the famous tweet that he did after getting an overhead picture of a failed Iranian missile launch, which he was shown during an intelligence briefings,” Bolton said. “Didn’t give back, and it was tweeted before the intelligence officials got back to their office.”

“There’s utterly no excuse for that,” he added. “There’s no conceivable reason for that except that made him feel good to be able to do it. That’s one example but it’s typical of the mindset in my view.”

Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges of mishandling classified documents and attempts to keep them from the government earlier this month. He has maintained that he had the right to keep those documents and has claimed that the investigation is politically motivated.