Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge Trump in November, reacted to Bolton's claim that Trump tried to convince Chinese President Xi to increase imports from American farmers because it would be good for his reelection prospects. 

"He was willing to trade away our most cherished democratic values for the empty promise of a flimsy trade deal that bailed him out of his disastrous tariff war that did so much damage to our farmers, manufacturers, and consumers," Biden said in a statement. "If these accounts are true, it's not only morally repugnant, it's a violation of Donald Trump's sacred duty to the American people to protect America's interests and defend our values."

Biden then linked Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic to his desire for a finished trade deal with Xi for political leverage. It's why, Biden posits, that Trump continued to praise the Chinese government and downplay the threat even as the coronavirus began to spread. 

America has "been hurt far worse because of Donald Trump's inability to lead and his failure to meet the crisis." Biden said. "Today we learned more about the depth and nature of that failure," Biden added. 

Missing from his lengthy statement is reaction to Bolton essentially confirming the charges leveled by Democrats against Trump during the impeachment inquiry. Biden unwittingly became a central figure in that probe as it centered around Trump freezing military aid to Ukraine to pressure that country to launch an investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter. 

House Democrats wanted Bolton to testify in the impeachment hearings, but he refused and threatened to sue if subpoenaed. The Senate later voted on whether to call Bolton as a witness, but it didn't pass. 

Shortly after Biden's statement was released Wednesday, Trump tweeted for the first time in almost a day: "Joe Biden was a TOTAL FAILURE in Government. He 'bungled' everything that he touched!"

The focus in Bolton's book on Trump's engagements with China gives Biden an upper hand in the candidates' battle over who is better equipped to deal with China. A Trump campaign attack ad against Biden suggests the former vice president has been soft on China and another elevates an unsubstantiated claim that there was something nefarious about Hunter Biden's dealings with China. 

Biden closed his statement with a "message to China's leaders, or anyone else who President Trump might invite to interfere: stay out of our democracy. Stay out of our elections. The American people alone will decide the future of this country, and I am confident in the choice they will make."

Democrats vent fury toward Republicans over handling of Trump impeachment

WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats on Wednesday reacted with fury to the revelation in a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton that President Donald Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, with some blaming Bolton for not speaking out earlier, others criticizing Republicans for voting to bar new evidence in Trump's impeachment trial earlier this year, and a few demanding answers to questions raised by the new revelations.

Bolton writes in his book, scheduled for release next week, that Trump told Xi during a summit dinner in June 2019 that an increase in agricultural purchases by Beijing from American farmers would aid his electoral prospects.

At the same meeting, Xi also defended China's construction of camps to house as many as 1 million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang - and Trump signaled his approval, Bolton writes in the book.

Some Republicans, such as Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, defended their vote earlier in the year to acquit Trump and to block witnesses such as Bolton from coming to testify on the central question of whether Trump held back U.S. aid to Ukraine until the country launched an investigation into Joe Biden. 

"I haven't read John Bolton's book, but I don't need to rethink my decision," Alexander said Wednesday evening at the Capitol. "The question was, in the trial, did I need any more evidence to be convinced that President Trump did what he was accused of doing? I said he did it. I was convinced. I didn't need any more evidence."

He added: "I simply said that that didn't rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, which would qualify for conviction on impeachment."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was the lead impeachment manager, said in a tweet Wednesday that Bolton "may be an author, but he's no patriot."

"Bolton's staff were asked to testify before the House to Trump's abuses, and did," Schiff tweeted. "They had a lot to lose and showed real courage. When Bolton was asked, he refused, and said he'd sue if subpoenaed. Instead, he saved it for a book."

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Bolton book excerpts only further demonstrate that Democrats were correct to lead the push for Trump's impeachment on charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.

"It was clear then and could not be any clearer now: the vote to convict and remove Donald Trump from office was absolutely the right vote," Schumer said in a statement. "The revelations in Mr. Bolton's book make Senate Republicans' craven actions on impeachment look even worse - and history will judge them for it."

Some Democrats with powerful positions on committees said Bolton's claims about Trump's conduct opens up new questions to be probed, with at least one wanting to hear from Bolton directly. 

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., sent a letter to the executive vice president of the Trump Organization asking for a full accounting of Trump's business arrangements with ICBC, a Chinese state-controlled bank. 

"This disturbing revelation raises new questions about other ways in which President Trump benefits personally, and financially, from the Chinese government, including through ongoing business relationships," Menendez wrote. 

Menendez's counterpart in the House, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said he would be consulting with other House Democratic leaders on next steps. 

"The House will continue to look for answers wherever we may find them about the President's abuses and corruption," Engel said in a statement. 

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, is interested in a different allegation Bolton makes in the book about Trump's attempt to interfere in a criminal investigation as a favor for Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan.

"If John Bolton has an interest in serving his country, as opposed to selling books, he will respond promptly to my forthcoming request for more information about Donald Trump's relationship with Turkey," Wyden said.

Other lawmaker saw the details in Bolton's book as a political rallying cry for Democrats.

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, argued that the revelations make it more important than ever for Democrats to go to the polls in November.

"There is no new piece of evidence, or crime or moral transgression that will cause congressional republicans to do the right thing and stand up to trump," Schatz tweeted. "We just have to beat them up and down the ticket."

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., quipped that Republican members of Congress will likely plead ignorance of the book excerpts.

"Really looking forward to a whole bunch of Republicans in Congress claiming they haven't seen the Bolton excerpts," Cicilline said in a tweet.

Whether the Senate would call Bolton to testify was the big question mark of the impeachment hearings that otherwise everyone knew would most likely end with Trump's acquittal. 

During the Senate impeachment hearings in January, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked the White House defense team why the Senate shouldn't call Bolton, someone who would have direct knowledge of what went on with Ukraine. 

A White House lawyer argued that the Senate's role was to decide whether the information in the House's articles of impeachment warranted removal from office, not to gather new evidence.

Murkowski ultimately voted against calling Bolton to testify, blaming the House for a "rushed and flawed" impeachment probe. Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine were the only Republicans to vote in favor of hearing from Bolton.

Last September, the day before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced that the House would mount an official impeachment inquiry against the president, Bolton told Engel in a phone call that the House Foreign Affairs Committee should investigate why former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch had been recalled. Bolton indicated that he had more information to divulge on the matter, according to a statement that Engel put out about the conversation during the Senate's impeachment trial. 

At that point, reports had been circulating for a few days that a whistleblower complaint stating Trump was holding up congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine to get that country's president to investigate the Bidens, and the debate about whether the Ukraine allegations would turn into an impeachment investigation was playing out in the open. 

Bolton's tip about Yovanovitch was unprompted, according to Engel, and he offered no similar tip regarding China, then or since, according to a person familiar with their conversation.

Then, in the final days of the impeachment hearings, details from the book leaked about Bolton's allegation that Trump had been trying to tie U.S. aid to Ukraine to that country launching an investigation into the Bidens and the Democratic Party.

Romney was the first Republican to say the revelations had convinced him they needed to hear from Bolton. While other Republicans said they considered it, only Collins voted with Romney.

"If Members of Congress repeatedly solicited foreign countries to help our reelection campaigns, we would go to prison," Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., tweeted. "Illegal to work with a foreign power to help your campaign. @realDonaldTrump would likely be in prison if he weren't President."