The idea that John Bolton, a lifelong conservative and loyal Republican, is some sort of “deep state” James Comey clone out to sell books by making up stories to damage President Trump is patently absurd.
The New York Times on Sunday reported that Bolton writes in his new book that when he was national security adviser, Trump told him that he wanted to keep security assistance to Ukraine frozen until the government moved forward on investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 campaign. The claim is significant because if Bolton were to testify to that effect, it would be the first time that any official would have said they directly heard Trump tie the aid to the investigations — an issue that is at the heart of the impeachment debate.
When I first read the report, I assumed that Trump’s allies would immediately seize on the source of the report and focus their attacks on the New York Times. Yet Trump went directly after Bolton.
“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” Trump tweeted. “In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.”
Trump retweeted the Federalist’s Sean Davis, who argued: “John Bolton is running the exact same revenge playbook against Trump that James Comey used. He’s even using the same agent and leaking to the same reporters. All because he’s mad Trump fired him for leaking and trying to start new wars. It’s so boring and predictable.”
Trump also retweeted commentator Lou Dobbs, who teed up the Bolton news with: “Rejected Neocon, Failing NYTimes, Deep State’s Last Desperate Act After @POTUS Attorneys Destroy Radical Dems, Schiff and Pelosi Charges.”
Of all the defenses that Trump could pull, however, trying to portray Bolton as some sort of sequel to Comey is absurd.
Bolton is a lifelong conservative, having gotten his start in politics volunteering for Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign before he was 16 years old.
Bolton went on to be an outspoken conservative at Yale Law School. In his memoir, Justice Clarence Thomas credits Bolton with pushing him to question his liberal beliefs. “John was known as a conservative while I still thought of myself as being far left of center (when I wasn’t just being cynical),” Thomas writes. He explains how Bolton challenged him. During one argument, Bolton said, “Clarence, as a member of a group that has been treated shabbily by the majority in this country, why would you want to give the government more power over your personal life?” Though it didn’t instantly make Thomas a conservative, the justice writes, “John’s question reverberated in my mind for a long time to come.”
Also while at Yale, Bolton co-authored a seminal article for the American Enterprise Institute warning about the threat to freedom posed by excessive regulation of campaign finance. After graduating, he fought in private practice on the side of the First Amendment in the landmark 1976 Supreme Court case on the issue, Buckley v. Valeo.
He went on to serve Ronald Reagan and every Republican president since loyally. And at every point, he was fighting to advance ideological goals, not merely pursue the path of least resistance.
Trying to suggest that Bolton would be seeking the love of the establishment or protecting the deep state is preposterous to anybody who knows anything about his career.
Bolton has consistently fought against the establishment and been pilloried for it. He had to be recess-appointed to the United Nations because of his long record of challenging the institution. “The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories,” he once famously quipped. “If it lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” His tenure at the U.N., cut short as establishment Republicans knifed him, was a daily battle against the ruling class — not just within the United States, but the entire world.
His 2007 book, Surrender Is Not an Option, could serve as a textbook in a class about the dangers of the deep state. In the book, Bolton details how career employees in the State Department undermine Republican administrations and carry out their own foreign policy rather than that of the presidents they are supposed to serve. He complains about how, too often, subject matter experts become advocates for the countries they’re working on as opposed to advocates for U.S. policy.
The final argument, that Bolton is just out to sell books, also doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. As with any author, I’m sure Bolton wants to sell as many books as possible. However, he also could have sold a ton of books had he offered a full-throated defense of Trump. That is, had he written a book that said that Trump never told him about tying aid to Ukraine to the investigations and that this is just another example of a witch hunt, he would have been on Fox News and talk radio constantly and would have had a bestseller on his hands. Further, he would have revived his career as a conservative hero and all the money-making opportunities that go along with it.
Assuming the New York Times account is accurate, by writing this book, Bolton is burning bridges with most conservatives knowing the establishment will never accept him.
There are nowhere near 20 Republican votes to oust Trump from office, even with Bolton’s account. Trump and his defenders have other arguments at their disposal. But the effort to turn Bolton into some sort of Comey-esque tool of the deep state and establishment is completely ridiculous.
