Fleitz to Newsmax TV: You can’t impeach on ‘thought crime’

Even if President Donald Trump did tell John Bolton that he wanted to withhold aid to Ukraine, it would have been a discussion with his national security adviser, not a policy decision, and it would not be an impeachable matter, Center President Fred Fleitz told Newsmax TV.

“The aid to Ukraine was delivered, and the Ukrainian leadership didn’t know a delay was being contemplated, so this was a thought that the president was proposing,” Fleitz, who twice served as Chief of Staff to Bolton, told host John Bachman on “Newsmax Now.” “The Democrats want to prosecute him basically for a thought crime as he knocked ideas around with his advisers.”

Fleitz emphasized, he does not think the president told Bolton plans for withholding aid, but “even if he did say this to his advisers, it was not a policy decision.”

Fleitz, in an opinion piece for Fox News, called on Bolton to hold back on the publication of his memoir until after the 2020 election, and he told Bachman that former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates had resigned in 2011, but did not publish a book until 2014.

“It’s a precedent Amb. Bolton should follow,” Fleitz said.

He also said he finds it “interesting” The New York Times would run a report about Bolton’s manuscript with its reporters having not seen it, but at the same time, Fleitz said he doubts the publication would have passed on the story.

“When it comes to Republicans, when it comes to a story that will hurt President Trump, anything goes,” Fleitz said. “I think there will be a lot of retractions.”

Fleitz also said he doubts another report that Bolton complained to Attorney General William Barr about Trump, as it “doesn’t seem like the type of thing that Amb. Bolton would do.”