John Bolton is the most interesting part of impeachment.
Were you as bored as me with impeachment before it even happened? The kindest development of 2019 was that Baby Yoda emerged more or less simultaneously with the Articles of Impeachment, giving us all something more entertaining to watch. At least with “The Mandalorian” I didn’t know what Werner Herzog was up to for an episode or two.
Conversely with the Articles of Impeachment, me and every other armchair pundit in America saw the future in excruciating, boring detail: the House would vote to impeach along partisan lines, then the Republican-controlled Senate would inevitably vote to acquit. Maybe one or two Republicans would defect and provide an interesting spectacle through career immolation, but more likely a handful would give tortured monologues about the weight of their decision and a stern rebuke to Trump and then vote to acquit him anyway.
I’ve found impeachment to be so boring that I studiously avoided it on my podcast this month, instead spending my time chatting with PJ O’Rourke about how reserve currencies work and why America will never ever be Sweden despite how much many people wish it was.
The only really interesting development I see in impeachment is John Bolton. Who I used to hang out with in the Fox Business greenroom, before he’d guest on our show to argue about how many thousands of American troops should be dispatched to solve a given problem. Like the Middle East, or traffic jams, or particularly difficult Sudoku puzzles. John Bolton has never seen a problem he did not think could be solved by mobilizing 10,000 armed Americans to shoot at it. (Trump’s recent Tweet tirade explaining he fired Bolton “because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now” is probably the most insightful thing the president has ever said.)
The first time I ever spoke with John Bolton was as he left the set of “The Independents,” a libertarian program on Fox Business. In that particular episode the three hosts had railed against Bolton’s hawkishness with an intensity which would have emotionally hobbled me, but only vaguely irritated him. He had entirely forgotten the exchange before he left the studio. I approached him and said, “I don’t mean this offensively, but... do you have adrenaline?” The ambassador explained to me that he was trained as a trial lawyer, and could comfortably argue without getting emotional impacted. Then we chatted about Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger. (I can’t remember what he said specifically, but it was probably chiding Kissinger for being such a pansy on troop deployments.)
The last time I spoke with Bolton was shortly after the inauguration. Bolton was giddy. His mustache was positively glowing. At that time he was in the running for Secretary of State, or National Security Advisor, and indeed wound up getting the latter. I can’t say Bolton and I are friends, but I can say that we were on friendly terms, and that I personally like him almost as much as I politically fear him. So my parting words before I left Fox were, “Ambassador, I’d like you to know that I really like you, and you have a standing invitation to my birthday party. But also, I would support any law that barred you from ever holding any public office, ever.”
This is my comprehensive rubric for if I like and find John Bolton funny, or if he’s terrifying and might possibly start World War Six:
Is he in a position to bomb people? Y/N
Presently he’s back in the “No” position which means I like him and I’m happy to hang out with him. In fact I’ll go a step further: I’m actively trying to interview him for my show, specifically about anything unrelated to national security. I would genuinely be interested to hear about his interests, hobbies, and background outside of the foreign policy stuff we all know. I interviewed Grover Norquist at Burning Man this summer in what is widely lauded as the longest Grover has ever spoken about not-taxes in public. (I know there are some high-profile Republicans who read this newsletter: if you’re buddies with John Bolton and think he’d enjoy a friendly, humanizing conversation with a guy who likes him despite strongly disagreeing with him, feel free to connect us.)
Back to impeachment. The interesting John Bolton development is that he’s agreed to be a witness in the impeachment trial if subpoenaed, and additionally, the Trump administration is censoring his book, allegedly due to national security issues. That’s bound to rankle him. Also apparently in the book is confirmation from Bolton that Trump withheld publicly-funded aid to Ukraine as a quid quo pro to investigate his chief political rival, Joe Biden. Bombshell! Smoking gun!
This perhaps explains why the Trump defense team has shifted from “the president did absolutely nothing wrong” to the more extreme step of exhuming Alan Dershowitz. The new Dershowitz defense is: “Well, the president thought blackmailing a foreign leader using public funds to help his own presidential campaign is okay, because as president, he thought his presidential campaign was a national priority.”
As I write this, we do not yet know if the Republican-controlled Senate will agree to call witnesses in the trial, or try to wrap things up by 3:00 so everyone can have a whiskey ginger and go golfing. (I’m betting on golf, incidentally.) So allow me to make something perfectly clear: If the Republicans decide to skip witnesses, John Bolton is not going to shrug and then fade into the ether. He is canny. He is undeterred, and if anyone in America might wind up shutting down the Trump presidency, it’s John Bolton.
John Bolton has a knack for strategy, a mustache, and an inoperative adrenaline gland. He has equally expert knowledge in both how the media cycle and government operating procedures work. He knows how to surgically wield a leak to reporters, make a splash, and also the difference between "illegal" and "inappropriate." If called as a witness, he has the goods and ability to deliver torpedoes at the USS Trump Administration if he feels like it. But if he isn’t called as a witness, he still has those torpedoes, and he is more than capable of figuring out how to deploy them to inflict maximum damage.
The question is: what’s Bolton’s end goal? To sell books? Purge the government of Trumpian malfeasance? Bloody the nose of the president who fired him, or begrudgingly protect a fellow Republican from a Democratic incursion?
I don’t know, but if anything winds up rattling the otherwise rote impeachment procedures, it’s John Bolton.