President Donald Trump, in an Oval Office conversation more than two months before he asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate his political rivals, told his national security adviser John Bolton to set up a meeting between the new president and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to new information released Friday from Bolton's unpublished memoir.
Bolton says in his manuscript that Trump told him during the May meeting, which also included acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Giuliani, and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, to make sure Zelenskiy and Giuliani would meet when the former New York City mayor traveled to Ukraine, reports The New York Times.
Bolton said he never made the call.
Trump and Giuliani both denied the manuscript's claims Friday afternoon.
In a statement to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Trump denied that the meeting took place or that he had instructed Bolton to set up a meeting.
"I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of N.Y.C., to meet with President Zelensky," Trump said in the statement, which Haberman posted on her Twitter page. "That meeting never happened."
Giuliani, when contacted by the newspaper on Friday, also denied that the meeting had taken place, calling it "absolutely, categorically untrue" that he, Cipollone, and Mulvaney were involved in meetings related to Ukraine.
The May meeting, if proven true, would be the earliest instance that Trump sought to use the U.S. government for his push for Ukraine to investigate Democrats or Joe and Hunter Biden.
Bolton nor Mulvaney responded to requests for comment.
Bolton also wrote in his book that he started to object when he learned more about Trump's pressure campaign on Ukraine.
Earlier this week, The Times reported that Bolton also had written that Trump told him in August about his plans to keep $391 million in military aid to Ukraine frozen to push for the investigations he wanted.
The White House says Bolton's book contains classified material but denies claims it wants to block the memoir altogether.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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