Sarah Sanders Recounts Bizarre Bolton Incident That Reveals He Was 'Drunk on Power'
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton might have won a battle or two in publishing his “tell-all” memoir of his time in the Trump White House.
But he’s losing a war when it comes to preserving his reputation in the wake of his betrayal of President Donald Trump and his administration.
And when former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders used a lengthy Twitter thread Monday to lay into Bolton by publishing an excerpt of her own memoir, it was clear another front had opened.
In the excerpt, Bolton comes off as almost embarrassingly “arrogant and selfish” — Sanders’ two words.
“Bolton was a classic case of a senior White House official drunk on power, who had forgotten that nobody elected him to anything,” she wrote.
Full excerpt from my forthcoming book “Speaking for Myself,” about John Bolton, a man drunk on power who ultimately betrayed America when he didn’t get his way… “That evening the United States hosted the reciprocal dinner at the Winfield House, the US Ambassador’s residence…
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) June 22, 2020
By way of example, the excerpt in the Twitter thread recounted an incident during the 2019 presidential trip to London, where White House advisers — including then-acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin but without Bolton — traveled by a single bus from a hotel to the American ambassador’s residence, known as the Winfield House.
The group was supposed to be part of a motorcade United Kingdom security officials had arranged for White House staff because Trump would be traveling mainly by helicopter. Bolton, who traveled to the U.K. in a separate plane, was supposed to meet the rest of the staff with the motorcade at their hotel, Sanders wrote, but he never showed.
While the bus was en route, according to Sanders, police directed the vehicle to pull over to make room for a motorcade coming through – the motorcade carrying Bolton.
“The discussion on the bus quickly moved from casual chit chat to how arrogant and selfish Bolton could be, not just in this moment but on a regular basis,” Sanders wrote. “If anyone on the team should have merited a motorcade it was Mnuchin, but he was a team player.”
When the bus arrived at the Winfield House, Sanders wrote, Mulvaney (who’s now the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland) lit into Bolton.
“Mick made clear he was the chief of staff and Bolton’s total disregard for his colleagues and common decency was unacceptable and would no longer be tolerated,” Sanders wrote. “‘Let’s face it John,’ Mick said. ‘You’re a f—— self-righteous, self-centered son of a b——!’”
Mick made clear he was the chief of staff and Bolton’s total disregard for his colleagues and common decency was unacceptable and would no longer be tolerated. “Let’s face it John,” Mick said. “You’re a f—— self-righteous, self-centered son of a b——!”
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) June 22, 2020
For an outsider reading that, the whole issue might sound a little petty – even funny.
But Sanders made it clear it was just an example that came from “months of Bolton thinking he was more important and could play by a different set of rules than the rest of the team.”
That epithet really didn’t have much to do with the motorcade, but was the culmination of months of Bolton thinking he was more important and could play by a different set of rules than the rest of the team. Bolton backed down and stormed off…
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) June 22, 2020
Just how different those rules were came out in a column published by Fox News on Monday by K.T. McFarland, a former Trump White House deputy national security advisor who was caught up in the whole deep state operation against retired Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor.
Bolton, McFarland wrote, “was so convinced of his superior intelligence that he was condescending to everyone, including the president. He was increasingly isolated within the West Wing; cabinet officers ignored him and went behind his back directly to the president. He even avoided contact with his own National Security Council staff.”
That behavior might not have been a surprise in light of the anecdote McFarland opened her column with. She wrote that she ran into Bolton in the green room at Fox News on Election Day 2016 and asked if he’d voted yet.
Bolton replied, according to McFarland: “Yes, for Trump. He’s an idiot, but anybody is better than Hillary Clinton.”
Obviously, a national security advisor who thinks the president he serves is an “idiot” is not going to make an ideal counselor.
McFarland’s time at the White House did not overlap with Bolton’s, but she wrote that she was aware of his performance through her acquaintances who were still part of the National Security Council.
“I heard from several of my former NSC colleagues who remained at the White House after I left that Bolton spent most of his time – when he wasn’t in the Oval Office – sitting in his office behind closed doors,” she wrote. “His staff wasn’t sure what he did for those hours on end. Now we know – he was, in all likelihood, turning his copious notes into a manuscript, presumably in anticipation of getting a lucrative book deal, and rushing it into print quickly when the inevitable happened and he was fired.”
Bolton, McFarland wrote, was also a chronic leaker, playing the Washington game of talking to reporters when he didn’t get his way in the White House.
“Bolton and Trump clashed from the beginning – not just over policy, but in style and temperament. Bolton pushed for preemptive military action against Iran, Syria, Venezuela and North Korea,” McFarland wrote. “When the president took a different course, Bolton took to the phone. He became the ‘anonymous source’ for reporters, dishing out tales of White House chaos and presidential incompetence.”
In short, Bolton – a generally popular figure among conservatives when he was a vocal critic of the Obama White House, but who has been vilified by the left for decades — is now facing a full offensive from the right.
His winning of a judge’s ruling on Saturday against the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” from public sale was a victory.
But it’s coming at the price of attacks from figures who are not just popular but genuinely respected among Trump supporters.
“No doubt John Bolton will get rich selling his White House story and will become the newest darling of the Trump-hating world. But at what price to the nation? More division, more rancor, more hatred,” McFarland wrote.
“Washington has always attracted the venal and the vain, the ambitious and the arrogant, but even they must blanch at what John Bolton has done.”
Bolton is a veteran of battles in politics and the media, but what he’s lost in this fight is impossible to get back.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
