When You’re Too Shady for John Bolton, It’s Time to Reexamine Your Life Choices

Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, hasn’t yet been called to give a deposition to Congress for their impeachment inquiry. But we’re learning a lot about his thoughts in the meantime.

On Monday, former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill gave her testimony to Congress, which included a lot of information about Bolton. By her account (according to the Washington Post and the New York Times), Bolton was “furious” over the Ukraine scheme being driven by Giuliani and other Trump associates, including Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who was supposed to given his own deposition last week before being blocked from doing so by Trump. (He is set to appear in front of Congress this week.)

Hill says that in one meeting, Sondland specifically brought up “investigations that were dropped that need to be started up again”—which apparently everyone knew was a reference to Joe and Hunter Biden—and Bolton went “ballistic.”

It sounds like Bolton was desperate to distance himself from whatever “drug deal” (his words) Giuliani and others were “cooking up.” He said Giuliani was akin to a “hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.” Which definitely doesn’t sound inaccurate, but Giuliani still didn’t take kindly to it.

Some people are starting to call Bolton a hero, which is definitely going too far. (I’m getting James Comey flashbacks.) He didn’t instruct Hill to testify, and while he did reportedly tell her to bring their concerns about the Ukraine calls and deals to the White House lawyers, he didn’t report to the FBI or anyone else who was likely to actually do something about those concerns. He also stayed in his position until Trump fired him by tweet. He’s not exactly an ally.

Still, the fact that John Bolton is anything resembling a Democratic asset right now is absolutely ridiculous. The man is a nationalist neocon war hawk. He effectively destroyed the National Security Council in order to exploit Trump’s inexperience to allow him to pursue his own foreign policy agenda. He’s done immense, lasting damage to the country.

And yet somehow, here we are.

It’s almost like firing someone by tweet isn’t the best way to preserve their loyalty.

(image: Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com

Author

Close

Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

twitter