Tale Of Two Crackpots: Surprised That A Rapper Is Hoping To Save Trump While A Far Right Hawk Is Working To Bring Him Down?

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Kanye West's new album is Trump-friendly. West, who has been diagnosed as bipolar, lost his mind long ago. Despite his disgusting Trumpist sentiments, West, according to Rolling Stone "is estimated to be the highest-paid hip-hop act of 2019 with $150 million in pre-tax earnings... The closer Kanye aligned himself with some of the most damaging, and profitable, forms of capitalism-- religion, the far-right, tech companies-- the more his business boomed." On Friday he released his new album, Jesus is King. Paris Hilton, a confirmed moron, loves it. Mr. Taliafero called it garbage-- trash.

Maybe it's more surprising than Kanye being, as Tim Pool put it, Trump's 2020 "ace in the hole," is that John Bolton might be the Democrats'. NPR reporters Mara Liasson and Domenico Montanaro explained Bolton's new role in the impeachment inquiry.



Bolton they wrote "hardly fits the profile of someone who would be in 'The Resistance' to Trump. His saber-rattling, hard-line stances toward countries such as Iran have made him something of a boogeyman for liberals through the years, especially after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But now, after testimony about Bolton's role in the battle over the Ukraine affair, a more complicated portrait of the former national security adviser emerges. "I think the portrait that comes through is exactly the person who he is," [AEI's Danielle] Pletka said. 'He's a very shrewd lawyer. He's very attuned to his own principles, and he doesn't get mixed up in dirty stuff.'"

Lawmakers involved in the impeachment inquiry heard from two people who worked with Bolton on Ukraine. They said Bolton was so irritated after he learned about the plan to connect U.S. military assistance to a Ukrainian pledge to investigate conspiracies about the 2016 election and the Bidens that he abruptly ended a meeting.

He told Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official in charge of Russia policy, that she should have "nothing to do with domestic politics." According to Hill, Bolton also called Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer and shadow emissary to Ukraine, a "hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up."

The man who took over for Hill on the National Security Council, Tim Morrison, is scheduled to testify Thursday. House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry have spoken with a lawyer for Bolton about a possible deposition, according to media reports citing unnamed sources. NPR has not confirmed the discussions.

William Taylor, the current acting ambassador to Ukraine, named Morrison, who is still with the White House, more than a dozen times in his deposition. He noted that he and Morrison each had knowledge of-- and opposed-- the withholding of aid.

Taylor also testified that Bolton was also against setting up a phone call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump because he was worried it would "be a disaster."

...There have always been two aspects to Bolton's reputation-- he was a conservative hawk, not afraid to advocate for U.S. military action, but he was also a skilled infighter, a bureaucratic black belt-- and that comes through in the testimony too.

He told Hill to "brief the NSC lawyers" to make sure there was a record of her opposition to the shadow foreign policy.

He told Taylor to send a first-person cable to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that expressed Taylor's concerns.

Groombridge said all this is right in character.

"His bureaucratic skills served him very well in that there is now a paper trail, which essentially exonerates Ambassador Bolton and, in some ways, almost paints him as the hero in this. I mean, I recall the first day I joined the State Department-- it was Oct. 15, 2001. And the only sort of fatherly advice Ambassador Bolton gave me at the time was, he said, 'Always get the process right. That way those who oppose you are forced to engage you on substance.' And I think Ambassador Bolton, in his capacity as [national security adviser], was doing the same thing."

The Ukraine affair isn't the first time Bolton disagreed with Trump during his tenure as Trump's national security adviser. Bolton wanted tougher lines on Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Trump did not.

Back in September, when Trump fired Bolton by tweet, Bolton's enemies-- and there were plenty of them-- described him anonymously as abrasive, self-promoting, a war monger, disloyal.

And though Bolton, who was once a frequent presence on Fox News, has gone to ground, turning down repeated requests to discuss his role in the Ukraine scandal, he will likely respond. He told the Washington Post that he would have his say in "due course," and he is currently shopping a book deal.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have lots of questions for him, including, "Did Bolton ever bring his concerns to the president directly?" and "What other steps did he take to free up the aid to Ukraine?"

Congress has asked two of Bolton's former aides to testify next week. It's unclear if they'll appear, but the House impeachment inquiry will also, eventually, want to hear from Bolton himself.