John Bolton has written his book. He is telling us all of the things we thought we knew: that Trump would do anything to get re-elected, including the impeachment offense of withholding funds from Ukraine until they \u201cgot the dirt\u201d on Biden. Bolton added that Trump flat-out asked China to buy more agriculture products so he could be re-elected. He shopped American funds to foreign leaders to gain advantage in the election, and openly invited their intervention into the electoral process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bolton laid out all of this and more in his book, five months after the impeachment trial ended in the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s like a witness to the Brown\/Goldman murders coming forward and saying that they saw OJ do it with the knife and wearing the gloves and shoes, right after the trial ended.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s salacious, and it will definitely sell. To use an old phrase, \u201cInquiring minds want to know\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0I want to know, and as loath as I am to donate to the \u201cBolton Fund,\u201d we\u2019ll have a copy here at the house soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House is doing everything it can to increase book sales.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s not intentional, but the President has tasked the Justice Department to find a way to bring charges against Bolton, and to somehow stop the book publication.\u00a0\u00a0But the book is already out there, in the hands of the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>and the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>and the rest of the mainstream media.\u00a0\u00a0The proverbial \u201cbarn door\u201d is wide open; no judge will want to look foolish enough to try to close it with the horses already gone.\u00a0\u00a0All the legal hoopla will just drive the book farther up the\u00a0New York Times<\/em> bestseller list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bolton flirted with testifying to the Senate during the impeachment trial. He even leaked out some of the Trump\u2019s more significant transgressions.\u00a0\u00a0Yet he never took the unalterable step of publicly saying what happened, in fact; he didn\u2019t do so until the publicity tour started this week. He\u2019s been a masterful salesman, keeping public interest high and bringing the book now, when all of the investigations have quieted in the Congress and he can have center-stage all to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But with all Bolton\u2019s talk about what the President did, it certainly seems he\u2019s took the coward\u2019s way out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n John Bolton is a Republican. While even some other Republicans see him as an outlier, willing to take the Neo-Con ideology to extremes, he still is an \u201cestablishment\u201d member of the Party. And John Bolton runs a political action committee that supports many Republican candidates, gaining financial influence over those new legislators. He wanted into the Trump Administration early, but it took almost two years and the firing of Generals Michael Flynn and HR McMaster for him to finally be invited to the National Security Advisor role. He almost shaved his trademark mustache; it was rumored that Mr. Trump didn\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bolton claims the President not only wanted help from foreign leaders to win re-election, he also states the President obstructed justice, and was incompetent in leading the nation. And yet Bolton served silently on as the National Security Advisor for seventeen months. Instead of stepping forward and letting the Congress, and the American people hear what was going on, he joined the ranks of \u201cAnonymous\u201d and others in enabling a failed leader. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, he covered his \u201cass\u201d. When his subordinates asked what they should do about \u201cGiuliani\u2019s Drug Deal\u201d and Sunderland\u2019s back room negotiations, he told them to \u201cgo to the lawyers\u201d. He wanted no part of that; though he left those same subordinates \u201cholding the bag\u201d in front of the House Intelligence Committee. Vindman, Morrison and Hill all took the heat from the Committee and the President for telling the truth. Bolton hid behind a fa\u00e7ade of getting \u201clegal permission\u201d from the courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A patriot would have resigned and made it clear why. General Mattis followed that path, when the President\u2019s actions went beyond \u201cthe pale\u201d. But Bolton, like so many others, stayed and enabled the disaster that is the Trump Administration. Now he hopes to profit from it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He sits righteously on\u00a0Face the Nation\u00a0<\/em>and tells his story.\u00a0\u00a0He lays out a chilling tale of a President incompetent, ignorant and egocentric.\u00a0\u00a0We will have the opportunity to hear it again and again in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bolton has it figured out. He could have told his story in January, and the Senate would have been forced to listen. But he counted the votes, and didn\u2019t see a way that the Republican Senators would be convinced to remove the President. So, rather than face banishment from his political power base, he simply hinted his story, then let the GOP Senators make the choice. Call him, sure he would testify. But Senators wanted cover: they didn\u2019t want to hear Bolton\u2019s story. That made exonerating Trump\u2019s actions easier \u2013 and Bolton could accommodate that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if he waited to publish the book later, say in September or early October: well then he be accused of singlehandedly trying to alter the election. Instead, it\u2019s now, in June, when there\u2019s plenty of time for the Trump misinformation machine to paper over the mess. So here comes the book, and here comes the truth of the Impeachment charges. Bolton gets to keep his profit, and his power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it good for the Nation?\u00a0\u00a0In an election where about eleven percent or less will decide who the next President will be, everything counts.\u00a0\u00a0So, yes, Bolton\u2019s story is still important.\u00a0\u00a0But Bolton should get no \u201cpoints\u201d for courage.\u00a0\u00a0That opportunity passed six months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s all about profit now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staying in Power<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Patriot<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What’s Good for Bolton<\/h3>\n\n\n\n