A closer look at the most debated and controversial moments involving John Bolton.
John Bolton is an American attorney, diplomat, and Republican consultant known for his hawkish foreign policy views. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006) and as National Security Advisor (2018-2019).
Before graduating from Yale College in 1970, John Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard rather than waiting to find out if his draft number would be called and later wrote he had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy and considered the war in Vietnam already lost.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, was to be enforced.
In 1994, John Bolton stated, "There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that's the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along."
In May 2000, José Bustani had been unanimously re-elected for a four-year term—with strong U.S. support
In 2001, Colin Powell praised José Bustani's leadership.
In 2001, John Bolton was instrumental in derailing a biological weapons conference in Geneva. The conference was convened to endorse a UN proposal to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
In 2002, John Bolton demanded the resignation of Brazilian José Bustani, head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), allegedly threatening Bustani's family.
Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman alleged that 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.
In April 2004, John Bolton again accused Cuba of being a terrorist and (biological weapons) threat to the United States.
In June 2004 congressional testimony, John Bolton stated that Iran was lying about enriched uranium contamination.
On April 12, 2005, the Senate panel investigated allegations that John Bolton pressured intelligence analysts. Former State Department intelligence chief Carl W. Ford Jr. labeled Bolton a "serial abuser" of power and contradicted Bolton's earlier testimony, claiming Bolton asked him to fire an intelligence analyst.
On May 26, 2005, Senate Democrats postponed the vote on John Bolton's UN nomination, initiating the first filibuster of the year. Democrats alleged that the Bush administration withheld key documents regarding Bolton's career at the Department of State.
On June 20, 2005, the Senate voted on cloture for John Bolton's UN nomination, but the vote failed. Senator Voinovich switched his previous "yes" vote and urged President Bush to pick another nominee. Later, Voinovich recanted his opposition.
On July 28, 2005, it was revealed that John Bolton made a false statement on forms submitted to the Senate. Bolton had stated he hadn't been questioned in any investigation, but he had been interviewed by the State Department's Inspector General regarding pre-war claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The State Department later reversed its stance, claiming Bolton had simply forgotten about the investigation.
At their August 2005 meeting the IAEA's Board of Governors concluded: "Based on the information currently available to the Agency, the results of that analysis tend, on balance, to support Iran's statement about the foreign origin of most of the observed HEU [highly enriched uranium] contamination."
In 2007, John Bolton explained his comment in the reunion book saying his decision to avoid service in Vietnam was because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."
In 2008, Bolton campaigned in Ireland against further European Union integration, and he criticized the Treaty of Lisbon for expanding EU powers.
In 2010, John Bolton wrote a foreword for the book "The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America" by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, endorsing the book and its critique of Barack Obama.
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 U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Bolton stated that this was a 'diplomatic illness' in December 2012.
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 through lobbying.
In 2013, John Bolton became the chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a far-right anti-Muslim organization known for disseminating false anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim information.
Since 2014, the John Bolton Super PAC had paid Cambridge Analytica more than $1.1 million for 'research' and 'survey research', according to the Center for Public Integrity's analysis of campaign finance filings.
In December 2016, John Bolton stated that the United States Intelligence Community's conclusion that Russian hackers had intervened to help elect Donald Trump in 2016 may have been a "false flag" operation. In a subsequent interview on Fox News, Bolton criticized the Obama administration's retaliatory sanctions as insufficient and suggested that the US response should "make them [the Russians] feel pain".
In March 2018, Bolton suggested that South Korea take North Korea and terminate the North Korean regime as the only "diplomatic option", and said that the war between the two countries is their problem and not the United States' problem.
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. The choice to remove and not replace Ziemer in the midst of an emerging Ebola outbreak in The Democratic Republic of Congo was criticized in several news outlets.
On September 10, 2018, in his first major address as National Security Advisor, John Bolton criticized the International Criminal Court, saying it lacks checks and balances, exercises "jurisdiction over crimes that have disputed and ambiguous definitions," and has failed to "deter and punish atrocity crimes."
On November 1, 2018, John Bolton, as National Security Advisor, praised Brazil's president-elect Jair Bolsonaro and Colombia's president Iván Duque Márquez as "like-minded" partners and framed Bolsonaro's election victory as a "positive sign" for Latin America. He also criticized Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua as a "troika of tyranny" in the speech on November 1, 2018.
In August 2019, according to a forthcoming book reported by The New York Times, Bolton wrote that President Trump wanted to continue freezing Ukraine aid until investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens, were pursued.
On September 10, 2019, President Trump claimed on Twitter that he had told John Bolton on September 9 his "services are no longer needed", thus Bolton gave his resignation on September 10. Just minutes later, Bolton contradicted Trump's account, tweeting out this claim: Bolton offered to resign on September 9, with Trump replying: "Let's talk about it tomorrow."
On November 7, 2019, John Bolton refused to attend his scheduled deposition in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. He threatened legal action if subpoenaed, stating his willingness to testify pending a federal court ruling on the Trump administration and Congress's competing claims.
In December 2019, John Bolton submitted his memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," for security review, a standard procedure given his security clearance.
In 2019, Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo successfully sabotaged Trump's attempts to open diplomatic channels with Iran.
On January 6, 2020, John Bolton announced in a written statement obtained by NBC News that he would testify during the Senate impeachment trial if subpoenaed. A 51-vote majority from the Senate would be required to obtain the subpoena.
On January 28, 2020, Trump impeachment lawyer Jay Sekulow dismissed Bolton's claims from his leaked book as "inadmissible" during Senate defense arguments. This dismissal, according to Democratic trial manager Adam Schiff, validated the argument to call Bolton to testify.
On June 16, 2020, the Trump Justice Department attempted to block the publication of John Bolton's memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," seeking to confiscate his $2 million advance for breach of contract.
In June 2021, the Justice Department dropped its criminal inquiry of John Bolton and moved to end efforts to confiscate proceeds from his book.
In October 2021, Shahram Poursafi, an Iranian national, plotted to allegedly murder John Bolton, likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Qasem Soleimani.
In July 2022, during an interview with CNN, John Bolton admitted to his personal involvement in planning unspecified coups d'état in foreign countries.
On August 10, 2022, Shahram Poursafi, an Iranian national, was charged by the United States Department of Justice in a plot to allegedly murder John Bolton in retaliation for the death of Qasem Soleimani.
In December 2023, Bolton proposed resettling Palestinians from Gaza.
In April 2024, Bolton said that the Gaza war "is an Iranian war against Israel, fought through terrorist proxies", and the only way to end the suffering of the people of Gaza "is to eliminate Hamas, which is the cause of the suffering."
On January 20, 2025, President Trump rescinded the protective detail from the United States Secret Service that had been granted to Bolton after the murder plot against him was revealed.
In July 2025, Bolton suggested that Algeria offer Donald Trump a gift to abandon American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
On August 22, 2025, FBI agents raided John Bolton's home as part of a documents investigation. The raid occurred at approximately 7 a.m., authorized by a court order, and involved a search for "classified materials" in both his home and his property in Washington, D.C.
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