John Bolton, the newly appointed National Security Advisor is entirely fed up with the leaks coming out of the government and plans to do something about it.
He appeared with Martha MacCallum on Fox News and had this to say:
“When I read about the leak of the notes and the subject of the conversation, I was outraged by it,” Bolton said of news that Trump ignored advice not to congratulate Russian president Vladimir Putin on his electoral victory. “I mean, it recalled earlier in the administration when somebody was leaking transcripts of the president’s conversations with foreign leaders. It’s completely unacceptable.”
“You cannot conduct diplomacy, you cannot expect other foreign leaders to be candid and open in their conversations with the president if some munchkin in the executive branch decides they’re going to leak the talking points of the transcript or any other aspect of it,” he declared. “I think this is really a terrible reflection on the individual or individuals who did this. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
On announce his pick, Trump stated:
“I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor,” Trump said. “I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.”
I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2018
Bolton has previously served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and is currently is a Fox News contributor.
This barely a week after it was decided that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would be fired and replaced with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
From The Guardian:
Bolton, who will leave his post as a senior fellow at the rightwing American Enterprise Institute to join the White House on 9 April, has made clear his preference for how to deal with North Korea – bomb it. Last month he wrote an opinion column for the Wall Street Journal in which he made a legal case for a pre-emptive strike.
“It is perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current ‘necessity’ posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons by striking first,” he wrote.
The former ambassador, whose basic approach to diplomacy is summed up in the title of his book Surrender is Not an Option, has made a similarly combative case for Iran. He was scathing of Barack Obama’s attempt to deal with Tehran’s nuclear program through negotiation, writing in the New York Times in 2015 that only bombing by the US and Israel would take out Iran’s uranium-enrichment installations and prevent disaster.
The mustachioed Bolton has had a long, frequently controversial career in government. He held senior positions in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, where he led successful US opposition to joining the international criminal court and made a strident attempt to block the introduction of stronger global controls on biological weapons.