John R. Bolton Biography | John R. Bolton
John Robert Bolton (born November 20, 1948) is an American attorney, political commentator, Republican consultant, government official and former diplomat who serves as the 27th National Security Advisor of the United States. He began his tenure as National Security Advisor on April 9, 2018. Bolton served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006 as a recess appointee by President George W. Bush. He resigned at the end of his recess appointment in December 2006 because he was unlikely to win confirmation from the Senate, which the Democratic Party had gained control of at the time.
Bolton is a former senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), senior advisor for Freedom Capital Investment Management, a Fox News Channel commentator, and of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. He was a foreign policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Bolton is also involved with a number of politically conservative think tanks, policy institutes and special interest groups, including the Institute of East-West Dynamics, the National Rifle Association, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Project for the New American Century, Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, the Council for National Policy, and the Gatestone Institute, where he served as the organization Chairman until March 2018.
Bolton has been called a “war hawk” and is an advocate for regime change in Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Somalia, Yemen, and North Korea and repeatedly called for the termination of the Iran deal. He was an early supporter of the Iraq War and continues to back this position. He has continuously supported military action and regime change in Syria, Libya, and Iran. A Republican, his political views have been described as American nationalist, conservative, and “neoconservative”. Bolton rejects the last term and uses the term “pro-American” instead.
John R. Bolton Age
John Robert Bolton is an American attorney, political commentator, Republican consultant, government official and former diplomat who serves as the 27th National Security Advisor of the United States. He began his tenure as National Security Advisor on April 9, 2018. whois 70 years old as of 2018. He was born on November 20, 1948, in Baltimore, MD
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John R. Bolton Early life and Education
Bolton was born on November 20, 1948, in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Virginia Clara “Ginny” (née Godfrey), a housewife, and Edward Jackson “Jack” Bolton, a fireman. He grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Yale Heights and won a scholarship to the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland, graduating in 1966. He also ran the school’s Students For Goldwater campaign in 1964.
Bolton attended Yale University, earning a B.A. and graduating summa cum laude in 1970. He was a member of the Yale Political Union. He attended Yale Law School from 1971 to 1974, where he shared classes with his friend Clarence Thomas, earning a J.D. in 1974.
In 1972, Bolton was a summer intern for Vice President Spiro Agnew. He was hired for the position by David Keene.
John R. Bolton Height
John Robert Bolton is an American attorney, political commentator, Republican consultant, government official and former diplomat who serves as the 27th National Security Advisor of the United States. Who has a height of 5ft 9in (176 cm) tall
US National Guard and Army Reserve service
During the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, Bolton drew number 185. (Draft numbers corresponded to birth dates.) As a result of the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ decisions to rely largely on the draft rather than on the reserve forces, joining a Guard or Reserve unit became a way to avoid service in the Vietnam War, although 42 Army Reserve units were called up with 35 of them deployed to Vietnam shortly after the Tet offensive in 1968–69.
Before graduating from Yale in 1970, Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard rather than wait to find out if his draft number would be called. (The highest number called to military service was 195.) He saw active duty for 18 weeks of training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, from July to November 1970. After serving in the National Guard for four years, he served in the United States Army Reserve until the end of his enlistment two years later.
He wrote in his Yale 25th reunion book: “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.” In a 2007 interview, Bolton explained his comment in the reunion book saying his decision to avoid service in Vietnam was because “by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from.”
John R. Bolton’s Family – Wife, Children,
John Robert Bolton is an American attorney, political commentator, Republican consultant, government official and former diplomat who serves as the 27th National Security Advisor of the United States, In marriage, John Bolton has a record of divorce.
He married his first wife Christine Bolton in 1972 and divorced her in 1983 under allegations of involvement in a group sex activity at Plato’s Retreat. This was a popular swingers club that held sway in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their marriage didn’t produce any child though.
John Bolton remarried and this time around to Gretchen Smith Bolton and they both have a daughter named Jennifer Sarah Bolton. Both parents live in Bethesda, Maryland. Details of when he married his second wife officially as well as when their daughter was born are not publicly known. There have been no controversies following this marriage as the two have been together for a long time.
John R. Bolton Private sector
From 1974 to 1981, Bolton was an associate at the Washington office of Covington & Burling; he returned to the firm again from 1983 to 1985. Bolton was also a partner in the law firm of Lerner, Reed, Bolton & McManus, from 1993 to 1999. Bolton was executive director of the Committee on Resolutions in the Republican National Committee from 1983 to 1984. Bolton was formerly involved with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Federalist Society, National Policy Forum, National Advisory Board, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, New Atlantic Initiative, and Project on Transitional Democracies.
Before joining the George W. Bush administration, Bolton was senior vice president for public policy research at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, from 1997 to 2001. Between 1997 and 2000, Bolton also worked pro bono as an assistant to James Baker in Baker’s capacity as Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan’s personal envoy to Western Sahara.
He has run the John Bolton PAC and the John Bolton Super PAC since 1998. Since 2006, he has been a paid Fox News contributor and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. For 2017, he reported an income of $569,000 from Fox News. Bolton was a contributor to The Weekly Standard, an American conservative opinion magazine, from 1997 to 2000, and again from 2014 to 2016.
From 2013 until March 2018, Bolton was chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a nonprofit organization that has been criticized for disseminating false anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim information, where Bolton published articles on Iran and other topics. He was of counsel in the Washington office of Kirkland & Ellis from 2008 until his appointment as National Security Advisor in 2018. In 2018, the White House reported that Bolton’s total income for 2017 had been $2.2 million which included $569,000 from Fox News and $747,000 in speaking fees from, among others, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation (a Ukrainian NGO), Deutsche Bank, and HSBC.
Government service
During the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, his governmental roles were within the State Department, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was a protégé of conservative North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.
His Justice Department position as an assistant attorney general required him to advance Reagan administration positions, including opposition to financial reparations to Japanese-Americans held in World War II-era internment camps; the insistence on Reagan’s executive privilege during William Rehnquist’s chief justice confirmation hearings, when Congress asked for memos written by Rehnquist as a Nixon Justice Department official; shepherding the judicial nomination process for Antonin Scalia; and the framing of a bill to control illegal immigration as an essential drug war measure. He was also involved in the Iran–Contra affair.
Bolton’s government service included such positions as:
Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs at the Department of State (1989–1993), where he coordinated the successful effort to rescind the United Nations resolution from the 1970s that had equated Zionism with racism, and also played a major role in supporting the efforts of the U.S. Mission to obtain UN resolutions endorsing the use of force to fight Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait;
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division (1988–1989);
Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs, Department of Justice (1985–1988);
Assistant administrator for program and policy coordination, USAID (1982–1983); and
General counsel, USAID (1981–1982).
While working for USAID, Lynne Finney, a legal adviser for the agency, alleged that Bolton threatened to fire her for refusing to lobby for the deregulation of baby formula in developing nations.
In January 1998, Bolton signed the Project for the New American Century’s letter to President Bill Clinton urging regime change in Iraq and stating “American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.”
Between 1999 and 2001, he served on the board of the Committee for International Religious Freedom.
During the George W. Bush administration, Bolton served as the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (2001–2005) and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2005–2006).
John R. Bolton Under Secretary of State
Bolton worked as the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, sworn into this position on May 11, 2001. In this role, a key area of his responsibility was the prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Bolton led the George W. Bush administration’s opposition on constitutional grounds to the International Criminal Court, negotiating with many countries to sign agreements, called Article 98 agreements, with the U.S. to exempt Americans from prosecution by the court, which is not recognized by the U.S.; more than 100 countries have signed such agreements. Bolton said the decision to pull out of the ICC was the “happiest moment” of his political career to date.
Weapons of mass destruction
Bolton was instrumental in derailing a 2001 biological weapons conference in Geneva convened to endorse a UN proposal to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. “U.S. officials, led by Bolton, argued that the plan would have put U.S. national security at risk by allowing spot inspections of suspected U.S. weapons sites, despite the fact that the U.S. claims not to have carried out any research for offensive purposes since 1969.”
In May 2002, Bolton gave a speech entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil” in response to President Bush’s State of the Union Address. In it, he added three more nations to be grouped with the aforementioned rogue states: Cuba, Libya, and Syria. The criteria for inclusion in this grouping were: “state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their treaty obligations.”
Also in 2002, Bolton is said to have flown to Europe to demand the resignation of Brazilian José Bustani, head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and to have orchestrated his removal at a special session of the organization. Bustani was deemed to be an obstacle in creating the case for the invasion of Iraq. The United Nations’ highest administrative tribunal later condemned the action as an “unacceptable violation” of principles protecting international civil servants. Bustani had been unanimously re-elected for a four-year term—with strong U.S. support—in May 2000, and in 2001 was praised for his leadership by Colin Powell.
According to Bustani, John Bolton demanded that he step down in 24 hours, adding, “We know where your children are”. According to a US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, Bolton praised Bustani’s successor, Argentinian diplomat Rogelio Pfirter, for among other things recruiting “good people” to the OPCW; Pfirter in return assured Bolton that an appeal would be filed against the tribunal decision in favor of Bustani.
He also pushed for reduced funding for the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program to halt the proliferation of nuclear materials. At the same time, he was involved in the implementation of the Proliferation Security Initiative, working with a number of countries to intercept the trafficking in weapons of mass destruction and in materials for use in building nuclear weapons.
Diplomacy
According to an article in The New Republic, Bolton was highly successful in pushing his agenda, but his bluntness made him many enemies. “Iran’s Foreign Ministry has called Bolton ‘rude’ and ‘undiplomatic’.” In response to critics, Bolton states that his record “demonstrates clear support for effective multilateral diplomacy.” Bush administration officials have stated that his past statements would allow him to negotiate from a powerful position. “It’s like the Palestinians having to negotiate with [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon. If you have a deal, you know you have a deal,” an anonymous official told CNN. He also “won widespread praise for his work establishing the Proliferation Security Initiative, a voluntary agreement supported by 60 countries”.
Bolton spawned controversy when, in a 2003 speech cleared by the State Department, he described North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a “tyrannical dictator” and saying that, for North Koreans under Kim’s rule, “life is a hellish nightmare.” In response, a North Korean spokesman said: “such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks.” Congressional Democrats argued that Bolton’s words at the time were undiplomatic and endangered the talks.
Bolton later wrote that he had been looking for a “hammer” to “shatter” the Clinton Administration’s 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, an implement he found when the country’s uranium enrichment program came to light. Critics argued that Bolton’s record of allegedly politicizing intelligence would harm U.S. credibility with the United Nations. President Bush said he wanted John Bolton because he “can get the job done at the United Nations.” Bolton recalls that his ‘happiest moment at State was personally ‘unsigning’ the Rome Statute,’ which had set up the International Criminal Court.
Criticism
In 2002, Bolton accused Cuba of transfers of biological weapons technology to rogue states and called on it “to fully comply with all of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.” According to a Scripps Howard News Service article, Bolton “wanted to say that Cuba had a biological weapons capacity and that it was exporting it to other nations. The intelligence analysts seemed to want to limit the assessment to a declaration that Cuba ‘could’ develop such weapons.” According to AlterNet, Bolton attempted to have the chief bioweapons analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the CIA’s national intelligence officer for Latin America reassigned.
Under oath at his Senate hearings for confirmation as ambassador, he denied trying to have the men fired, but seven intelligence officials contradicted him. Ultimately, “intelligence officials refused to allow Bolton to make the harsh criticism of Cuba he sought to deliver”, and were able to keep their positions. Bolton claims that the issue was procedural rather than related to the content of his speech and that the officers, who did not work under him, behaved unprofessionally.
Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman alleged that Bolton played a role in encouraging the inclusion of a statement that British Intelligence had determined Iraq attempted to procure yellowcake uranium from Niger in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address. These statements were claimed by critics of the President to be partly based on documents found to be forged. Waxman’s allegations could not be confirmed as they were based on classified documents.
Bolton stated in June 2004 congressional testimony that Iran was lying about enriched uranium contamination: “Another unmistakable indicator of Iran’s intentions is the pattern of repeatedly lying to … the IAEA … when evidence of uranium enriched to 36 percent was found, it attributed this to contamination from imported centrifuge parts.” However, later isotope analysis supported Iran’s explanation of foreign contamination for most of the observed enriched uranium.
At their August 2005 meeting, the IAEA’s Board of Governors concluded: “Based on the information currently available to the Agency, the results of that analysis tend, on balance, to support Iran’s statement about the foreign origin of most of the observed highly enriched uranium contamination.” In his book Surrender Is Not an Option (2007), Bolton criticizes the Bush administration for changing its foreign policy objectives during the start of the administration’s second term.
Critics allege that Bolton tried to spin intelligence to support his views and political objectives on a number of occasions. Greg Thielmann, of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), was assigned as the daily intelligence liaison to Bolton. Thielmann stated to Seymour Hersh that, “Bolton seemed troubled because INR was not telling him what he wanted to hear … I was intercepted at the door of his office and told, ‘The Under Secretary doesn’t need you to attend this meeting anymore.'” According to former coworkers, Bolton withheld information that ran counter to his goals from Secretary of State Colin Powell on multiple occasions, and from Powell’s successor Condoleezza Rice on at least one occasion.
On May 28, 2008, at the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, the British activist George Monbiot attempted to make a citizen’s arrest of Bolton, for his role as an architect of the Iraq War. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Monbiot was ejected by security personnel.
Speculation on position (2016–2017)
In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump named Bolton as a possible choice for Secretary of State. Appearing on Fox News’ Fox and Friends on December 1, 2016, Bolton admitted he was being considered as a Secretary of State candidate for the incoming Trump administration. Several Trump associates claim Bolton was not chosen, in part, due to Trump’s disdain for Bolton’s signature mustache.
The evening of December 10, the BBC cited NBC reports that “sources close to Mr. Trump [were] … saying that Mr. Tillerson is likely to be named next week” and that former UN ambassador John Bolton “will serve as his deputy”.
Bolton has supported theories about the health of Hillary Clinton and about her aide Huma Abedin, and in December 2016 Bolton stated that the conclusion of the United States Intelligence Community that Russian hackers intervened to help elect Donald Trump in 2016 may have been a “false flag” operation. In a subsequent interview on Fox News, Bolton criticized the Obama administration’s retaliatory sanctions as insufficient and suggest that the US response should “make them [the Russians] feel pain”.
Tenure
President Trump interviewed Bolton and three others to determine who would fill the position of National Security Advisor vacated by Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn. The position ultimately went to H. R. McMaster. Trump “made a point on Monday of praising Mr. Bolton and saying that he would find a position for him in his administration eventually.” Bolton was seen at the White House on the evening of March 6, 2018, presumably to be interviewed as a candidate for national security adviser.
The New York Times reported on March 22, 2018, that John Bolton would replace National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, which was confirmed by Trump in a tweet on March 22, 2018. Bolton began his position as National Security Advisor on April 9, 2018. The New York Times wrote that the rise of Bolton and Mike Pompeo, coupled with the departure of Rex Tillerson and General McMaster, meant that Trump’s foreign policy team was now “the most radically aggressive foreign policy team around the American president in modern memory”, and compared it to the foreign policy team surrounding George W. Bush, notably with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
On April 10, 2018, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert resigned at Bolton’s request, and Bolton said he is considering a merger of the NSC with the Homeland Security Council. During his first week in office Bolton requested and obtained the resignations of multiple National Security Council employees including NSC spokesman Michael Anton (April 8), deputy national security adviser Nadia Schadlow (April 10), and deputy national security adviser Ricky L. Waddell (April 12). CNN reported in September 2018 that Bolton had significantly shrunk the number of NSC personnel, cutting it to under 300.
On September 10, 2018, in his first major address as National Security Advisor, Bolton criticized the International Criminal Court, saying it lacks checks and balances, exercises “jurisdiction over crimes that have disputed and ambiguous definitions,” and has failed to “deter and punish atrocity crimes.” Calling the ICC a threat to “American sovereignty and U.S. national security,” Bolton said it is “superfluous,” given that “domestic judicial systems already hold American citizens to the highest legal and ethical standards.” He added that the U.S.
would do everything “to protect our citizens” should the ICC attempt to prosecute U.S. servicemen over alleged detainee abuse in Afghanistan, and it would bar ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the U.S. and sanction their funds. He also criticized Palestinian efforts to bring Israel before the ICC over allegations of human rights abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
In 2018, Bolton requested that the Pentagon provide the White House with options for military strikes against Iran. According to the New York Times, Bolton “intensified the administration’s policy of isolating and pressuring Iran — reflecting an animus against Iran’s leaders that dates back to his days as an official in the George W. Bush administration. As a private citizen, he later called for military strikes on Iran, as well as regime change.”
As national security advisor, Bolton eliminated the kinds of internal policy debates that his predecessor H. R. McMaster had in place. The New York Times writes that this change in practices contributed to Trump’s sudden and erratic decision to withdraw the United States from Syria in January 2019.
As National Security Advisor, Bolton advanced policies skeptical and hostile toward international organizations. By his first year as National Security Advisor, Bolton had reshaped the National Security Council and become influential within the Trump Administration.
John R. Bolton Political positions
He declared himself in an interview with Edward Luce of the Financial Times in 2007 to be a “Goldwater conservative”, as opposed to being a neoconservative. He also pointed out that he was a follower of Edmund Burke. He also said “I have always been a conservative. The idea of big-government conservatism has more neocon adherents than from unmodified conservatives.”
Unilateralism and sovereignty
Bolton is skeptical of international organizations and international law, believing them to endanger American sovereignty, and does not believe they have legitimate authority under the U.S. Constitution. He criticized the Obama administration’s foreign policy for what he perceived as surrendering U.S. sovereignty.
He also prefers unilateralism over multilateralism. In a 2000 article in the Chicago Journal of International Law, Bolton described himself as a “convinced Americanist”, favoring it over what he described as “globalism”. In his roles in the U.S. government, however, Bolton has been more pragmatic in his actions toward international organizations, though according to Foreign Policy, he effectively advanced his views on this subject during his tenure in the Trump Administration.
Bolton has criticized the International Criminal Court, seeing it as a threat to U.S. sovereignty. Bolton said: “If the court comes after us, Israel or other US allies, we will not sit quietly. We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system.”
European Union
Bolton is a critic of the European Union. In his book Surrender Is Not an Option, he criticized the EU for pursuing “the endless process of diplomatic mastication” rather than satisfactorily solving problems, and he labeled the organization’s diplomats as “EUroids”. He has also criticized the EU for advancing what he considers liberal policies. Bolton campaigned in Ireland against further EU integration in 2008, and he criticized the Treaty of Lisbon for expanding EU powers. In 2016, Bolton praised the UK’s referendum vote to leave the EU, and Axios reported in January 2019 that Bolton continued to advocate for a hard Brexit as National Security Advisor. In a March 2019 interview with Sky News, Bolton criticized the UK “political class” for not implementing the Brexit vote.
Libya
Bolton opposed the deal that George W. Bush made with then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to eliminate the country’s weapons of mass destruction program. He was in a key role during initial negotiations but his role became limited over time. According to a 2005 study, Bolton was intentionally kept out of the loop, so that a final agreement could be reached: “Bolton reportedly was unaware of the December 19 WMD agreement until very shortly before its public announcement.
And after initially being given a lead role in implementing it, he pushed so hard to backtrack from the agreement that the British convinced the Bush administration to restrict his involvement in the Libya matter.”
Bolton supported the NATO-led military intervention in Libya that toppled the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
Iraq
Bolton supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein and continued to support the invasion in 2018.
Israel
Bolton is known for his strong support for Israel. Bolton opposes the two-state solution of creating an independent Palestinian state alongside the existing state of Israel. Bolton supported moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in accordance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, and he testified in front of Congress in 2017 on the matter.
North Korea and Iran
Bolton has advocated for pre-emptive strikes against North Korea and Iran. In 2008, Bolton said: “The idea here is not to have much larger hostilities, but to stop the Iranians from engaging in the hostilities that they’re already doing against us inside Iraq. And they’re doing much the same by aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. So this is not provocative or preemptive, this is entirely responsive on our part.” In 2018, Bolton stated: “Russia, China, Syria, Iran, North Korea. These are regimes that make agreements and lie about them. A national security policy that is based on the faith that regimes like that will honor their commitments is doomed to failure.” He also said that “Our goal should be regime change in Iran.”
Speaking to a meeting of Iranian exile group Mujahedin-e-Khalq in March 2018, Bolton stated that the Trump administration should follow the goal of regime change in Iran and that “before 2019, we here … will celebrate in Iran.” Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recounted the prediction by describing the U.S. official making the prediction as a “first-class idiot”, without naming anyone.
Russia
Russian Senator Aleksey Pushkov, former chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said after Bolton’s appointment: “Bolton, along with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, was an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq. A supporter of jihadists for the sake of overthrowing [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad]. A great specialist in interventions and aggression, and adept at the use of force. McMaster is general. Bolton is the ideologue of a new cold war, a convinced opponent of Russia.”
In a June 2017 article entitled “Vladimir Putin looked Trump in the eye and lied to him. We negotiate with Russia at our peril,” Bolton called Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections “a true act of war.”As Trump’s national security advisor in July 2018, Bolton referred to the investigation into the Russian interference as “the Russia witch hunt.”.
China
Bolton criticized Washington’s One-China policy, under which Taiwan is not recognized as an independent nation. He also said: “There’s simply no excuse for the stealing of intellectual property, forced technology transfers it’s sometimes called.”
Latin America
In a speech on November 1, 2018, Bolton praised Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro and Colombia’s president Iván Duque Márquez, both right-wing conservatives, calling them “like-minded” partners. In the speech, he also framed Bolsonaro’s recent election victory as a “positive sign” for Latin America, and he criticized Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua as a “troika of tyranny.”
John R. Bolton Net Worth
This week, President Trump’s administration lost another of its key officials this week with the departure of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. In his place, Trump has appointed John Bolton, a name familiar from the Iraq War, and, more recently, regular Fox News commentary. But Bolton has held plenty of other jobs over the course of his career, many of them lucrative.
Bolton had also been accused of pressuring his former employees to make their evidence reports fit his worldview. According to Ford, when Christian Westermann, the chief bioweapons analyst at the time, would not sign off on Bolton’s assessment that Cuba was running a covert bioweapons program, Bolton yelled at him and attempted to have him fired.
As a result of his contentious hearing, Bolton was not confirmed as U.S. Ambassador — then. But Bush went on to appoint Bolton during a recess, and he served in the position through December 2006.
In 2017, the minimum salary for a U.S. ambassador was $124,406, but that can go up. However, an ambassador cannot make more than the vice president (current salary — $230,700). So, during his brief stint as ambassador, Bolton likely made around $100,000 but probably less than $200,000. Not bad.
It’s Bolton’s other, non-government jobs that have been the most lucrative. He currently runs two Super Pacs (John Bolton Super PAC and John Bolton PAC) and has already announced $1 million of planned spending on a single 2018 election in Wisconsin. Republican big spender Robert Mercer is a major donor to Bolton’s Super Pac. Bolton’s PACs reported a combined $3.6 million in cash as of late February.
Analysis of 2012 compensation for Super PAC organizers revealed they take home a significant paycheck. Roll Call found that conservative PAC organizers were “pulling in at least a half-million, and several make into the millions.” And it made no difference if the candidates the PACs were supporting won or lost. To take one example, Rebecca Burkette — who ran a Super PAC associated with Newt Gingrich’s failed presidential bid — took home over half a million dollars over the 2012 election cycle.
While it’s unclear how much Bolton was paid for running his Super PACs, it’s safe to assume it was well into the six figures.
Bolton was also a senior fellow at the right-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute. While his exact salary remains unreported, Chron writes that “top jobs at think tanks routinely run six or even seven figures.” He’s also served on the board of Diamond Offshore Drilling, as well as TRACON Pharmaceuticals.
Though he may not be a billionaire like the president he’s about to work for, Bolton is in all likelihood a very wealthy guy.
John R. Bolton Twitter
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