The latest in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is the drama surrounding former national security adviser John Bolton.
Specifically, Bolton has an upcoming “bombshell” book that promised to undercut the defense of Trump’s legal team.
This week, an excerpt from his tell-all manuscript was publicly released by The New York Times. Since then, questions surrounding exactly what the “bombshell” book means for Trump has dominated headlines and cable news shows.
The answer remains largely unknown — but if recent history is any indication, books that promised to “end” Trump’s political career haven’t delivered.
Since 2016, there have been at least five “bombshell” book releases that hinted they’d undo the current administration.
1. Omarosa Manigault Newman shot to stardom the first season of Trump’s television show “The Apprentice.” When Trump announced he was running for the White House, she quickly assumed a role as one of his fiercest campaign directors.
Shortly after his inauguration, she joined the White House as an adviser.Omarosa left a short while later under contentious terms — and promised to reveal in her book facts that would irrevocably damage the Trump presidency.
But it never happened. The book, “Unhinged” made many extraordinary claims, including that the president used the N-word, but the incident has been widely dismissed and the work discredited.
2. “Fire and Fury” by Michael Wolff featured “historic” claims against Trump — including an alleged affair with the former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
After review, much of the book was based on fiction rather than facts.Wolff himself even admitted it in 2018. The author confessed that he’s “barely a journalist” and what he wrote “has nothing to do with truth.”
3. James Comey, whose now under investigation by the Department of Justice, wrote a book on Trump called A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership.
But Comey’s credibility has been widely panned. He was rejected by Democrats for bringing up Hillary Clinton’s emails shortly before the 2016 election. After later being fired by Trump, many critics — such as Forbes’ John Baldoni — argued that Comey was nothing more than a book peddler.
4. Fear: Inside the White House by Bob Woodward was supposed to be a heavy hitter. After all, Woodward had broken the Watergate story that took down former President Richard Nixon.The book claimed former Chief of Staff John Kelly and Trump had some nasty back-and-forth incidents.
But Woodward never paid off any of the Russian conspiracies with proof despite looking “hard” for two years. Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said much of the book was totally “fabricated” and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion report later confirmed that there was no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia.
5. A Warning by an anonymous source. Rumor has it was a former senior White House official who wrote a New York Times op-ed claiming that they were part of the “resistance.” The book was said to have detailed accounts of the President’s incompetence.
But it — like the other tell-all books — contained nothing more than what critics called opinionated and baseless allegations.
These five books had one thing all in common.
In some way shape or form they were written with the intention of damaging Trump’s political capital beyond repair.
And all of them fell flat.
Could Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, available March 17, 2020, be the one that takes down the President?
Not if recently history is any indication.
The Horn editorial team