Sean Davis of The Federalist recently did a piece on former National Security Adviser John Bolton.
In it, he reminded readers of an interview Andrew Napolitano did with Bolton on Fox Business Channel, where Bolton admitted he would have no problem lying to the public if he thought national security concerns necessitated it.
Bolton is slated to have a book for Simon & Shuster come out in Mach 2020 recollecting his time during the Trump administration.
In the same interview, Bolton expressed that government secrecy and the protection of classified material was needed for the sake of maintain public security.
The former National Security Adviser has been a big figure throughout the Senate impeachment proceedings because of his previous affiliation with the Trump administration and revealing information contained within his upcoming book which ended up being leaked to the New York Times. Interestingly, the National Security Council informed Bolton’s lawyer that his book features classified information.
“A diplomat is a statesman sent out to lie for his country,” the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations declared.
At the time, Bolton was invited to talk about diplomatic cables and documents that Wikileaks had obtained and released. In Bolton’s view, WikiLeaks’s actions were “an attack on the United States.”
“Is it an attack on the United States for us to know that our ally, Saudi Arabia, is actually financing Al Qaeda?” Napolitano inquired. “Isn’t that something we would want to know?”
“I want to make the case for secrecy in government when it comes to the conduct of national security affairs and possibly for deception where it’s appropriate,” Bolton replied. He then channeled Winston Churchill’s insight that “truth is so important it should be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.”
“Do you really believe that?” Napolitano responded in disbelief. “You would lie in order to preserve the truth?”
“Absolutely,” Bolton declared. “If I had to say something I knew was false to protect American national security, I would do it.”
Although Napolitano has had a suspect perspective on the Russia collusion drama, he has been solid on constitutional matters.
In this case, he was in the right and he continued pressing Bolton.
“Why do people in the government think that the rules of civil society or the laws don’t apply to them?” Napolitano asked.
“Because they are not dealing in the civil society we live in under the Constitution,” Bolton responded. “They are dealing in an anarchic environment internationally where different rules apply.”
“But you took an oath to uphold the Constitution, and the Constitution mandates certain openness and certain fairness,” Napolitano reminded Bolton. “You’re willing to do away with that in order to achieve a temporary military goal?”
“The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” Bolton asserted, drawing a quote former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.
Bolton is a swamp creature of the highest order.
His exchange with Napolitano shows the lengths D.C. elites will go to rationalize the status quo on foreign policy matters.
Bolton is among the biggest hawks in D.C. and has built a reputation for pushing for military intervention wherever he can.
His hawkish views were generally at odds with President Donald Trump’s America First vision on foreign policy.
“[F]rankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now,” Trump tweeted last week.
….many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2020
America First supporters breathed a sigh of relief when news of Bolton’s firing came out last September. Nevertheless, he should have never been hired in the first place. With all due respect to the president, he will need to improve upon his personnel selection.
America First will not happen with a neoconservative staff.
