'View' co-hosts confront Bolton: You're part of the reason Trump is 'still in office'

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Bolton tells Bret Baier he doesn't regret joining Trump administrations

John Bolton Sits down with Bret Baier on 'Special Report.'

The liberal hosts of "The View" had some strong words for former National Security Adviser John Bolton whom they argued should have spoken out against President Trump while House Democrats worked to impeach him at the end of last year.

Co-host Sunny Hostin outright accused Bolton of being "one of the very reasons, if not the reason, that President Trump is still in office, and wasn't impeached. Help me understand why your silence is not complicity in this," she said.

The House ultimately impeached Trump along partisan lines but the GOP-led Senate declined to convict Trump on the two articles presented by Democrats.

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She and the other co-hosts echoed mounting criticism that Bolton waited to criticize Trump until getting a book deal.

"You were working for Trump for 17 months, and you write about all this horrible stuff you saw go on, and yet you never said a word until someone gave you $2 million to write a book about it," Behar said.

"Now you can redeem yourself in my eyes if you even care," Behar added, laughing, "if you testify under oath about the unconstitutional, impossible criminal behavior of this president. Will you do that? Under oath." An impassioned Whoopi Goldberg similarly confronted Bolton on why he didn't testify.

During his interview, Bolton told Hostin that he thought Trump wanted to exchange foreign aid to Ukraine for information on former Vice President Joe Biden.

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But Bolton told "The View" he thought Democrats' impeachment push had become a partisan process that would have guaranteed much of the information in his book was ignored. He added that his testimony wouldn't have made "any difference."

"That's not true!" Hostin shot back. But Bolton maintained that Democrats' impeachment "malpractice" drove the parties into their "partisan corners."