John Robert Bolton was born on November 20,1948 and is an American attorney, diplomat, Republican consultant, and political commentator.
104 Facts About John Bolton
2.
John Bolton served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, and as the 26th United States National Security Advisor from 2018 to 2019.
3.
John Bolton served in the State Department as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1989 to 1993, and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs from 2001 to 2005.
4.
John Bolton was an advocate of the Iraq War as a Director of the Project for the New American Century, which favored going to war with Iraq.
5.
John Bolton was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006, as a recess appointee by President George W Bush.
6.
John Bolton stepped down at the end of his recess appointment in December 2006 because he was unlikely to win confirmation from the Senate, of which the Democratic Party had gained control at the time.
7.
John Bolton later served as the National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019.
8.
John Bolton repeatedly called for the termination of the Iran nuclear deal, from which the US withdrew in May 2018.
9.
John Bolton wrote a best-selling book about his tenure in the Trump administration, The Room Where It Happened, published in June 2020.
10.
John Bolton is widely considered a foreign policy hawk and is an advocate for military action and regime change by the US in Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen, and North Korea.
11.
John Bolton is a former senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Fox News Channel commentator.
12.
John Bolton was a foreign policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
13.
John Bolton was born on November 20,1948, in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Virginia Clara "Ginny", a housewife, and Edward Jackson "Jack" John Bolton, a Baltimore City fireman.
14.
John Bolton 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.
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John Bolton ran the school's Students For Goldwater campaign in 1964.
16.
John Bolton was a member of the Yale Political Union.
17.
John Bolton attended Yale Law School from 1971 to 1974, where he shared classes and student housing with his friend Clarence Thomas, earning a JD in 1974.
18.
In 1972, John Bolton was a summer intern for Vice President Spiro Agnew.
19.
John Bolton was hired for the position by David Keene.
20.
John Bolton was a supporter of the Vietnam War, but avoided combat through a student deferment followed by enlistment in the Maryland Air National Guard.
21.
John Bolton attended Active Duty for Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, from July to November 1970.
22.
John Bolton was a protege of conservative North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.
23.
John Bolton worked as the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, sworn into this position on May 11,2001.
24.
John Bolton negotiated so-called "Article 98" agreements with countries to prohibit them from turning Americans over to the International Criminal Court, which is not recognized by the US John Bolton said the decision to pull out of the ICC was the "happiest moment" of his political career to date.
25.
John 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.
26.
John Bolton argued that the plan would have jeopardized US national security by allowing spot inspections of suspected US weapons sites.
27.
In May 2002, John Bolton gave a speech entitled "Beyond the Axis of Evil" in response to President Bush's State of the Union Address.
28.
John Bolton added three more nations to be grouped with the aforementioned rogue states: Cuba, Libya, and Syria.
29.
Also in 2002, John Bolton is said to have flown to Europe to demand the resignation of Brazilian Jose Bustani, head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and to have orchestrated his removal at a special session of the organization.
30.
John Bolton "won widespread praise for his work establishing the Proliferation Security Initiative, a voluntary agreement supported by 60 countries".
31.
In 2002, John Bolton delivered a speech at the Heritage Foundation where he accused Cuba of having a secret biological weapons program, and of collaborating with Libya and Iran.
32.
Subsequently, John Bolton berated the analyst, unsuccessfully sought to fire him, began to exclude the analyst's supervisor from meetings, and tried to transfer the analyst to a different office.
33.
John Bolton was alleged to have sought to punish other intelligence officers who refused to endorse his claims about Cuba.
34.
Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman alleged that John Bolton played a role in encouraging the inclusion of the statement that British Intelligence had determined Iraq attempted to procure yellowcake uranium from Niger in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address.
35.
John Bolton has often been accused of attempting to pressure the intelligence community to endorse his views.
36.
On March 7,2005, Bolton was nominated to the post of United States Ambassador to the United Nations by President George W Bush.
37.
John Bolton's nomination received strong support from Republicans but faced heavy opposition from Democrats due initially to concerns about his strongly expressed views on the United Nations.
38.
John Bolton McCain, said the spirit of the agreement was to include all nominees.
39.
On November 9,2006, Bush, only days after losing both houses to a Democratic majority, sent the nomination for John Bolton to continue as representative for the United States at the UN.
40.
Chafee, the key member for John Bolton's approval, said "the bar is very high" for rejecting the president's nominees, suggesting that John Bolton would make it to the Senate.
41.
Townsel's encounter with John Bolton occurred when she served as a whistleblower against a poorly performing minority contractor for USAID, IBTCI.
42.
The failure of the Senate to end debate on John Bolton's nomination provided one surprise for some: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist voted against cloture for procedural reasons, so he could bring up a cloture vote in the future.
43.
Voinovich later recanted his opposition and stated that if John Bolton were renominated he would have supported the nomination.
44.
John Bolton indicated that in the prior five years he had not been questioned in any investigation, but in fact he had been interviewed by the State Department's Inspector General as part of an investigation into the sources of pre-war claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
45.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed Mr John Bolton, but told reporters that the new ambassador should consult with others as the administration continued to press for changes at the United Nations.
46.
On December 4,2006, John Bolton announced that he would terminate his work as US representative to the UN at the end of the recess appointment and would not continue to seek confirmation.
47.
Several Trump associates claim John Bolton was not chosen, in part, due to Trump's disdain for John Bolton's signature mustache.
48.
John Bolton has supported theories about the health of Hillary Clinton and about her aide Huma Abedin, and in December 2016, John Bolton said the conclusion of the United States Intelligence Community that Russian hackers had intervened to help elect Donald Trump in 2016 may have been a "false flag" operation.
49.
John Bolton began his position as National Security Advisor on April 9,2018.
50.
CNN reported in September 2018 that John Bolton had significantly shrunk the number of NSC personnel, cutting it to under 300.
51.
The Huffington Post reported that on May 8,2018, John Bolton removed Timothy Ziemer and dissolved his Global Health Security team formerly on the NSC leaving the administration's high level preparation for and ability to respond to pandemics, infectious disease, and other biological threats unclear.
52.
John Bolton criticized Palestinian efforts to bring Israel before the ICC over allegations of human rights abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
53.
In 2018, John Bolton requested that the Pentagon provide the White House with options for military strikes against Iran.
54.
In late August 2019, John Bolton met Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, Belarus.
55.
John Bolton refused to attend his scheduled deposition in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump on November 7,2019, and threatened to take legal action if he was subpoenaed.
56.
John Bolton said he was willing to testify, but wanted a federal court to first rule on a lawsuit by his former deputy seeking a court ruling on the competing claims of the Trump administration and Congress.
57.
However, in a written statement obtained by NBC News on January 6,2020, John Bolton announced that he would testify during the Senate impeachment trial should he be issued a subpoena to do so.
58.
Democratic trial manager Adam Schiff later remarked that Sekulow's assertion validated the argument that John Bolton should be called to testify.
59.
John Bolton was executive director of the Committee on Resolutions in the Republican National Committee from 1983 to 1984.
60.
Between 1997 and 2000, John Bolton worked as an assistant to James Baker when he was the UN Secretary-General envoy to the Western Sahara.
61.
John Bolton was a contributor to The Weekly Standard, an American conservative opinion magazine, from 1997 to 2000, and again from 2014 to 2016.
62.
From 2013 until March 2018, John Bolton was chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute, which is prominent for disseminating false anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim information.
63.
John Bolton considered running for president in the 2012 US presidential election.
64.
John Bolton received attention in conservative circles, including the cover of the December 31,2010, issue of National Review magazine.
65.
In January 2012, John Bolton endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican Nomination.
66.
John Bolton was senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, from 1997 to 2001.
67.
From 2010 until 2018, John Bolton served as Director, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies for AEI.
68.
John Bolton said the policy would encourage others to violate nuclear non-proliferation rules so they could then be rewarded for following the rules they'd already agreed to.
69.
In July 2013, John Bolton was identified as a key member of Groundswell, a secretive coalition of right-wing activists and journalists attempting to advance political change behind the scenes through lobbying of high-level contacts.
70.
John Bolton said he aims to raise and spend $25 million for up to 90 Republican candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.
71.
In January 2018, John Bolton announced a $1 million advertising campaign in support of Kevin Nicholson's bid for the Republican nomination to run against incumbent Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
72.
John Bolton has openly considered the idea of running for president in the 2024 United States presidential election in order to secure the Republican nomination against former President Donald Trump.
73.
Additionally, John Bolton has been widely ridiculed for proposing running for president, due to bipartisan opposition to him and his policies.
74.
John Bolton's attorney asserted that the White House was slow-walking the review process to prevent the book, which contained extensive harsh criticism of Trump, from being released during the 2020 election campaign.
75.
John Bolton 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.
76.
John Bolton pointed out that he was a follower of Edmund Burke.
77.
Long before Mr Trump popularized his "America First" slogan, Mr John Bolton termed himself an "Americanist" who prioritized a cold-eyed view of national interests and sovereignty over what they both saw as a starry-eyed fixation on democracy promotion and human rights.
78.
John 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 US Constitution.
79.
John Bolton criticized the Obama administration's foreign policy for what he perceived as surrendering US sovereignty.
80.
John Bolton has criticized the International Criminal Court, seeing it as a threat to US sovereignty.
81.
John Bolton has been a strong critic of the United Nations for much of his career.
82.
John Bolton has criticized the EU for advancing what he considers liberal policies.
83.
John Bolton campaigned in Ireland against further EU integration in 2008, and he criticized the Treaty of Lisbon for expanding EU powers.
84.
In 2016, John Bolton praised the UK's referendum vote to leave the EU, and Axios reported in January 2019 that John Bolton continued to advocate for a hard Brexit as National Security Advisor.
85.
John Bolton was in a key role during initial negotiations but his role became limited over time.
86.
John Bolton is regarded to be an "architect" of the Iraq War.
87.
John Bolton supported the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein and continued to stand by his support of the invasion by 2018.
88.
John Bolton opposes the two-state solution of creating an independent Palestinian state alongside the existing state of Israel.
89.
John Bolton supported moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in accordance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, and he testified in front of Congress in 2017 on the matter.
90.
In 2010, John Bolton co-founded the Friends of Israel Initiative with 12 other international figures.
91.
John Bolton has advocated for pre-emptive strikes against North Korea and Iran.
92.
In 2006, John Bolton attempted to bring prosecution against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide in the International Court of Justice, along with Alan Dershowitz, Dore Gold, and other experts from the United States, Canada, and Israel, based on Ahmadinejad's comments that "Israel must be wiped off the map".
93.
McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, John Bolton campaigned to press President Trump for a complete withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and rejected the idea it could be fixed.
94.
Unable at the time to directly present his position to President Trump, John Bolton published his proposal on how to withdraw from the Iran deal in an August 28,2017 National Review Online article.
95.
John Bolton has been one of the biggest anti-Iran hawks in the Trump administration.
96.
In May 2018, Joanne Stocker, a journalist and researcher studying the MEK, told Richard Engel of MSNBC that she estimates John Bolton was paid "on the low-end, $180,000".
97.
John Bolton is the ideologue of a new cold war, a convinced opponent of Russia.
98.
We negotiate with Russia at our peril," John Bolton called Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections "a true act of war.
99.
In 2018, John Bolton criticized Washington's One-China policy, under which Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, is not recognized as an independent nation, with recognition being given only to the People's Republic of China.
100.
John Bolton said in October 2018 that the United States' need to counter a Chinese arms buildup in the Pacific, including within South China Sea, was one of the reasons for their move to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, because China is not a signatory to the treaty.
101.
In December 2012, John Bolton suggested that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had faked a concussion to avoid testifying before Congress regarding the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
102.
John Bolton married Christina John Bolton in 1972; they divorced in 1983.
103.
John Bolton has been married to Gretchen Smith Bolton, a financial planner with AXA Advisors, since January 1986.
104.
John Bolton was born in Kansas City in 1945 and had been married once before, divorcing in 1973.