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Another insider backs Bolton

Are we seeing a crack in the wall? Maybe:

[O]ne of Trump’s former top aides told a Sarasota crowd Monday evening that if the reporting on what Bolton wrote is accurate, he believes Bolton.

“If John Bolton says that in the book I believe John Bolton,” said retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 18 months.

Kelly spoke Monday at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall as part of the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall lecture series. The general worked with Bolton during his time as chief of staff, which ended in early 2019. Kelly said Bolton is an honest person.

“Every single time I was with him … he always gave the president the unvarnished truth,” Kelly said of Bolton, who has become a figure of intense interest in the impeachment inquiry. Asked about the passages in Bolton’s book — which has yet to be released — that appear to reinforce the impeachment allegations, Kelly said Monday evening that “John’s an honest guy. He’s a man of integrity and great character, so we’ll see what happens.”

There are growing calls for Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial, something GOP leaders have resisted. Kelly said he supports calling witnesses during the trial. I mean half of Americans think this process is purely political and shouldn’t be happening but since it is happening the majority of Americans would like to hear the whole story,” Kelly said.

“So I think if there are people that could contribute to this, either innocence or guilt … I think they should be heard,” Kelly said, adding: “I think some of the conversations seem to me to be very inappropriate but I wasn’t there. But there are people that were there that ought to be heard from.”

John Bolton is a fanatical right-wing hawk. I find him to be an extremely dangerous man. But I haven’t ever known him to be a liar, at least not in the sense that these Trump people are all liars. Whatever his faults, and they are many, he’s always been upfront about his fanatical, right-wing hawkery.

Kelly is a similarly character. He did lie about Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson taking credit for something she didn’t do. He’s a right-wing fanatic also. But compared to the cascade of lies that comes out of the White House every day, he’s George Washington.

Acknowledging that these people aren’t inveterate liars is not to valorize them or forgive their ideology. But if you want to convince Republicans to do something you need to find validators they have a hard time dismissing as partisan and Bolton and Kelly are two who can potentially do that.

I say potentially because there is a lot of evidence that Republicans are already circling the wagons around their Dear Leader.

RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): I’ll tell you something else that’s not on anybody’s mind is John Bolton. Most people don’t know who he is, especially with all the coverage of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash…

Trump is trying to extricate the United States from affairs and military entanglements like this, and Bolton left in a huff. And he was ticked off about things. I have to also say this. I’ve had dinner with John Bolton a couple times. I’ve met him two or three times, and if this passage in the book is true, and this is actually what he’s intending, it’s not the John Bolton I thought I knew, this kind of disloyalty. You may say, “Well, Rush, it’s not disloyal. He’s simply telling the truth. The president didn’t want to…”

Yeah, but it is disloyal.

The guy who said the Abu Ghraib torturers were just “blowing off steam” and fluffed Bush and Cheney so hard he almost passed out is now a peacenik? There is literally nothing these people won’t say to please their masters.

But it is interesting to see if there is any line they won’t cross for Donald Trump. Throwing two hardcore wingnuts like Bolton and Kelly over the cliff to protect him would pretty much say it all.

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