John Bolton, who served as national security adviser to Donald Trump, said he’s “pretty confident” that allegations his former boss mishandled classified documents are true because he’s witnessed it firsthand.
“I think he was kind of a collector of things that he thought were of interest to him for some reason or another ― clippings, mementos, classified documents,” Bolton told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on Sunday. “And it was very disturbing.”
Trump was indicted on 37 counts in the classified documents scandal.
Bolton said he saw a “pattern” in which Trump liked to keep things from intelligence briefings and other meetings.
“It became the practice just to make sure that we got them back in as many cases as we could,” he said. “Obviously, we failed in many cases.”
He cited an example of Trump tweeting information on Iran that had come from a document he kept from an intelligence briefing.
“There’s utterly no excuse for that. There’s no conceivable reason for that, except it made him feel good to be able to do it,” he said. “That’s one example, but it’s typical of the mindset, in my view.”
Bolton called the allegations “serious” because they place sensitive information at risk “making it more likely that a foreign adversary could get their hands on it.”
“That’s why the criminal statutes are written the way they are, for very prudent reasons,” Bolton said.
Psaki asked Bolton if he would support Trump for president in 2024 should he win the Republican nomination.
Bolton said he voted for Trump in 2016, but didn’t in 2020, instead writing in the name of a conservative Republican in Maryland, where he votes.
He said he would do the same in 2024.
See his full conversation with Psaki below: