Bolton is just trying desperately to sell his book, which is coming out in March. I used to really like him --- but no more. I'm not buying that book. Turncoat. Disloyal. Pepper pot.
The way he has played it up to help sell his book, is well...
But yesterday he stated what he had to say would not change the outcome. I also found this, as he mentioned advice he got from an old colleague from so many years ago-
UPI, March 19, 1987
Washington News
By DANA WALKER
Attorney General Edwin Meese has grave doubts about the constitutionality of the law allowing for independent counsel to probe top officials such as those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, a Justice Department official said Thursday.
Assistant Attorney General
John Bolton, testifying before a Senate Governmental Operations subcommittee, stopped short of saying Meese believes the law is unconstitutional, despite being pressed by Sen. Carl Levin, co-sponsor of legislation to make the law permanent. The law, the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, expires in January 1988.
“There are grave doubts about the constitutionality” of key provisions of the law, including one that authorizes a special federal court — instead of the Attorney General — to appoint the independent counsel,
Bolton said, adding that he personally believed the law was unconstitutional. Levin said: “I think it’s clear to everybody that the Attorney General feels that this statute is unconstitutional. Why don’t you just say it?”
Bolton said Meese would favor the law if he had more power over the scope of investigations, the appointment of the prosecutor and termination authority over the counsel. “You want us to gut the statute,” Levin said.
Former special prosecutor Archibald Cox, whose firing by President Richard Nixon in the “Saturday Night Massacre” during the Watergate scandal sparked the push for the law, agreed with Levin, later testifying that
Bolton in effect was saying, “We’re for renewal of the statute with the guts taken out.”
Bolton left open the possibility the Justice Department may argue against the law if the appropriate case came up. “We would be prepared to argue against the constitutionality” of certain aspects of the law. . .
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John Bolton has Spectacular Record Defying and Withholding Evidence From Congress: Bolton has Never Brought a "Fair and Balanced" Approach to Any of His Jobs. . . The Washington Note by Steve Clemons
Makes me think he really got people going for nothing other than t9 sell books.
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