Well, John Bolton, of course, knows something about t
handling of classified document He was Donald Trump's
national security adviser from 2018 to the next year.
Also served as us ambassador to the UN under President
George W Bush. Ambassador Bolton. Welcome back to
Morning Rush. Good to see you. I will assume but
correct me if I'm wrong that you had a job where
national security was literally in the title. So when
you see pictures of the nation's top military and
intelligence secrets piled up in bathrooms and
ballrooms, what's your reaction Well, I think it
demonstrates just how serious these charges are and
unfortunately, it's reflective the way Donald Trump
treated security classification when he was in
the White House. They just didn't care much about
protecting the safety of things. He has done things
like tweet out a picture from America's National
technical means as we like to call them euphemistic way
of, of something that happened inside Iran just tweet
it out to the world and, and, and that's just
emblematic of, of his attitude overall. So, you know,
this indictment is really uh very narrowly tailored.
It's a, it's a very powerful indictment very d
for Donald Trump. But it's narrow, it could have been
much broader given the amount of documents we're
talking about and their potential sensitivity and for
folks, and there were a lot of folks who shrugged off
the New York indictment. You know, it was hush money to
a porn star and campaign financing in the weeds kind of
stuff. Uh This, not only because it's state versus
federal, this seems uh a lot more serious. There are
images to go along with it. You know that image now in
the bathroom instantly became famous. Um Over the
weekend, explain to people though the kinds of
documents that were there in Mar a Lago that should
give all of us pause because again, this isn't just
where trump lives. This is an event space where there's
fundraisers and weddings and banquets and who knows who
had access to those materials, but explain what kin
of stuff were in those dozens and dozens of boxes. Wel
over the course of his term of office, the president
was given uncounted amounts of information about
American military capabilities, capabilities of our
adversaries threats from terrorist proliferation of
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, enormous
amounts of information about sensitive diplomatic
economic matters and the the level of things the
president sees by definition is at the highest. You can
get no small problems come to the president. By the
time they get to him, there's nobody else below who's
able to make the final decision. So to give him the
information he needs, there's simply no ceiling on, on
how much or how sensitive it can be. And the concern
here is it's not, nobody's alleging here that the
these documents have fallen int the hands of Russia or
China. But that's not the point. The the issue is if
you don't safe hold the documents, if you don't look
out for their security, you dramatically increase the
risk of compromise and to, to have these documents in
unsecure locations uh in a, in a nightclub, basically,
uh just really defies description. I might say one
thing here, some of the president's defenders have
but the secret service is there and they safeguard the
documents. I I can tell you from my own experience. Uh
the job of the secret service is to protect the
president here. It's not to safeguard the documents.
They're obviously aware of what's on the property, but
their responsibility is safegua the person or the
ex president, not the documents Do you think this kind
of handling of classified and top secret information is
disqualifying from returning to the oval office
Absolutely. It displays a cavalier attitude about
American national security. It shows how little trump
fully understands the gravity of the decisions that
he's going to make and it's disqualifying because
Trump were truly innocent, he would want nothing to
distract him from getting an early trial as soon as
possible to prove his innocence to remove this threat
to his reputation. And yet he, he apparently believes
he's going to go through an entire presidential
campaign with this hanging over his head. It's a real
threat to the country. I hope the justice department
tomorrow at the arraignment. And then after that
presses for a very speedy trial And as I say, if I
were Donald Trump and I would, I were innocent, I would
want an even speedier trial than the justice departme
because I want this cloud from over, from off my head
to me, one of the most disturbing and hauntin
questions of the whole ordeal, regardless of the legal
or political fallout that we may see from this is that
we still don't have and likely never will have an
understanding of not only why he wanted these documents,
but also why he refused in the heart of the indictment
to give them back despite the request, despite th
subpoena, despite the feds coming into the home, didn't
want to give him back. And you have to ask yourself,
why was he hanging on to these things for dear life
What did he want to do with these documents What was h
thinking about doing What do you think he was able to
accomplish by having these thin And I asked that in
the very serious context of Donald Trump, if nothing
else being, being an extraordinarily trans action
human being and transactional politician, the root of
the first impeachment was I nee you to do us a favor
though, talking to Zelinsky about getting dirt on the
Bidens. You know, this man, you know, national securit
Why was he fighting like hell and lying to the
government and to his own attorney to keep the nation's
top secrets in his private estate slash nightclub,
you described it. Well, uh we, we can't say for certain,
but, but it was not for legitimate ends, that's for
sure. Uh It may be something as simple that proves
Donald Trump he had the documents and you don't, that's
that's part of his mentality. Trump sees everythin
through the prism of the question. Does it benefit
Donald Trump And if these, if these documents conta
compromising information on a foreign leader, if they
contained information that woul be valuable to a
foreign government, to know about the United States,
obviously the possibility of, o a transaction uh uh to
exchange the information for something of value is
there. But I think fundamentally for the tens of
thousands of people in the federal government who to
protect national security and the state department, the
intelligence community, the defense department who deal
with classified material. If they did a small fraction
of what Trump has accused, they'd be fired from their
jobs. They'd be court martialed If they were in the
military, they'd be prosecuted and they'd be washed up.
So for the, for the effective functioning of th
government, for trump to beat this indictment for
people to give him a pass, sends a corrosive signal
through the government and a corrosive has a corrosive
effect on our national security And you have to wonder,
will that be the mentality of the 12 people ultimately
picked to sit on this jury It has to be unanimous
verdict. One person who doesn't see the prosecution's
point of view on this. Donald Trump gets acquitt
despite all of the build up and drama leading up to
this moment also along the same lines of national
security. Do you share concerns about what we may see
tomorrow The threat of violence and the fact that some
of that is being stoked by politicians calling for an
eye for an eye and things of that nature. Are you
worried This could be another flashpoint in which
political violence emerges Well I certainly hope not.
You know, there were similar fears before his
indictment in New York. It turned out when you added
the pro trump demonstrators to the anti Trump
demonstrators, they probably still didn't total the
number of media representatives that were there. Uh I,I
would hope for the same thing tomorrow. I don't, I
couldn't, I can't predict it, but I just urge everybody
to calm down here. This is a very serious matter, but
it goes to the integrity of our judicial system and the
rule of law in this country and that's not going to be
served by violence from Trump supporters or trump
opponents And last thing, do you reject the main
argument we're hearing from trump and from others that
this is the weaponization of the, do J this is a
political persecution. What's your response Because
that has so far been the main response to the
indictment Yeah. Look, I'm an alumnus of the Department
of Justice. I mean, as assistant attorney general
during the Reagan administratio I know many people
there, uh, there are certainly bad actors as there are
in any human institution. Uh But this is not a
political attack on Donald Trum and even if it were,
even if others should have been prosecuted or should be
prosecuted in the future. Uh And people say there's a
double standard because they were not prosecuted, but
trump is being prosecuted. What's the answer to give
Trump a free ride here to go from a double standard to
no standard at all I don't think so. I think you take
the politics out of this issue and prosecute where the
law and the facts warranted regardless of the per
prior position or political party. John Bolton, former
US ambassador to the UN and former national security
adviser. Always appreciate your time and your insight.
Thank you.