“You’re My Hero, John Bolton… Not!”
The value of Bolton’s information is grossly overrated.
ABSTRACT: Since the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, we have had sufficient information, publicly available, to remove him from office, and before that, obvious evidence of Trump’s corruption probably speaks as loudly as anything Bolton has to say. Will Bolton’s book cause Americans to listen? Recent history says — probably not.
Valuing money over principles, John Bolton is cashing in. Such is what people are saying, Democrats and Republicans alike, though for different reasons. To the former, he should have testified during the impeachment process; to the latter, he’s a traitor.
So what?
(A) Would it have made one bit of difference to the impeachment trial outcome? Not at all.
(B) Is what he says in his book a smear of Donald Trump that is worse than what we already know? Not even close.
Take a closer look at the details of (A) and (B) above and decide for yourself…
(A) Impeachment Trial Outcome
If Bolton had testified to what he now makes public, Republicans would have acquitted Trump anyway. Let’s face it, the oath to judge fairly was not honored by any Republican — not even Mitt Romney. Take the easier of the allegations to serve as example. Allegation #2 of the Articles of Impeachment was Obstruction of Congress. The facts are compelling:
(1) Trump withheld evidence, and is still doing so.
(2) He barred subpoenaed subordinates from testifying.
(3) He intimidated witnesses — PUBLICLY AND DURING THE HEARINGS!
Any one of these actions is Obstruction. Trump did all three. The point was not even argued by the defense. Trump undeniably committed Obstruction of Congress.
The only defense of this charge contended by his lawyers was that “Obstruction is not an impeachable offense,” which is absurd. Why is it absurd?
- Defense Attorney Allen Dershowitz argued that neither Abuse of Power nor Obstruction was specifically spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. Yet, Article II, Section 4 of that document (the basis for impeachment and all U.S. law) says that “the President … shall be removed from Office … for high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” giving treason and bribery as examples. U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 73, Section 1505 clearly defines Obstruction as a crime punishable by up to five years in prison — eight years if involving terrorism. Obstruction of Congress by a president is not just a Misdemeanor, but a high Crime. The argument by Dershowitz, though eloquently stated, was so laughable that it wasn’t even used in the defense summary.
- Despite the absurdity of Dershowitz’s argument, Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s personal lawyers, contended in the trial’s closing remarks that both Articles of Impeachment “fail to allege impeachable offenses.” White House deputy counsel Pat Philbin intimated that “asserting immunity of his senior advisors” justified Trump to bar his subordinates from testifying. Clearly, asserting immunity does no such thing, and after making the assertion, Philbin didn’t even bother to make the case. Further, he made no case against Trump intimidating witnesses or withholding evidence.
Bottom line: Trump obstructed Congress, an impeachable offense. It doesn’t take a lawyer to see that, and 43% of our representatives in Congress are lawyers — 36% of Republican Senators. Yet, not a single Republican Representative in the House voted for impeachment, and not one Republican Senator voted for conviction on the Obstruction charge.
Senators Roy Blunt (R-Missouri), Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) all voted to convict Bill Clinton of Obstruction but acquitted Trump. Hypocrites all. The epitome of hypocrisy.
So, given that anyone judging strictly on the available facts of the case would have found Trump guilty of both impeachment allegations (see my book The Case for details), how does Bolton’s book make any difference? It doesn’t.
(B) Smear of Donald Trump
Does Bolton’s book detract significantly from Trump’s reputation? C’mon. You would have to be blind. Let’s take a single example of a crime against humanity perpetrated by Trump…
(Obviously, if you’re a staunch Republican with your head in the sand, you might not want to read this, and if you watch nothing but Fox “News” or One America News, you might not even know about it, but you can look it up online — if you dare.)
On October 6, 2019, Trump received a phone call from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey. Erdogan told Trump that if Trump didn’t do him a favor, Erdogan would force the removal of Trump’s name from the Trump Towers in Istanbul owned by Dogan Holding, a Turkish media and real estate conglomerate that pays the Trump Organization to license the Trump name and brand. That last sentence is a total lie. Let me be clear… I have no idea what Erdogan said. Nobody does, except Donald Trump, who won’t say. All we know is that within two hours of that call, without any conversation whatsoever with his advisors, military or otherwise, Trump pulled all U.S. troops out of Northeastern Syria, troops that were protecting our allies, the Kurds, who had lost thousands of lives helping the U.S. to defeat ISIS. Knowing that leaving the Kurds unprotected would open the way for a Turkish invasion, U.S. soldiers literally cried as they regrettably said goodbye to their Kurdish friends and allies. A brief history of the matter can be found here.
The result: predictably, hundreds of Kurdish soldiers were massacred by the Turks; 160,000 Kurdish citizens were driven from their homes; several hundred ISIS prisoners escaped because Kurds were no longer guarding the camps in which they were being held; the withdrawal of U.S. forces left a vacuum filled quickly by Russian military; U.S. Generals reported a loss of strategic military positioning in Syria that the U.S. will never regain; and the Kurds negotiated an alignment with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for protection from the Turks. Democrats and Republicans agreed that what Trump had done was wrong (to say the least), devastating to both the United States and to the Kurds.
Meanwhile, instead of apologizing, Trump bragged that he had done a “tough love” favor for the Kurds, who he falsely said were “ecstatically happy” about the “solution.” He further lied that what he did was an enormous success, and that Erdogan had done the right thing in invading Syria.
To this day, Trump has given no reason for his response to the call from Erdogan. Can anything in John Bolton’s book top this horrific, inhumane, unethical presidential act that damaged the United States, egregiously injured an ally, and shattered the lives of thousands of people with a single command to United States forces sadly under his control? I think not.
This is just one example of Trump’s incompetence and lack of conscience. His bungling of the current Covid-19 pandemic that has cost 117,000 American lives to date, is another. If you’re awake, you don’t need Bolton’s book to see that Republican failure to remove Trump from office in February has left the blood of Americans on the hands of every current Republican legislator. Removing them from office in the coming November general election is insufficient retribution. But it’s a start.