Impeachable Offenses
Unquestionably the most famous imagery with which John Bolton is and is ever likely to be connected has to do with his characterization of the blackmail scheme perpetrated by Donald Trump against the newly elected Ukraine head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky. This scheme climaxed with the infamous phone call in which Trump asked Zelensky to “do us a favor” which resulted in his impeachment. In the book, Bolton confirms reports of his reaction:
“I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.”
Aesthetic Allusion
Bolton shows off a little flair for creating imagery through the juxtaposition of two atheistic allusions when describing what life is like in the Trump White House. Of course, he also undercuts it by implicating himself as the heroic figure in the first allusion while conveniently ignoring his own stature as one of the prisoners who was a prisoner there of his own device:
“After all, as Cato the Younger says in one of George Washington’s favorite lines from his favorite play, `When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.’”
“Instead, the new Administration resembled much more closely the Eagles song “Hotel California”: `You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave.’
The Mafia
The Mafia does not exist according to the members of the Mafia. This vow of silence that extends even to simply admitting there is such a thing as organized crime is engaged metaphorically as imagery that covers the entirety of American politics except for the one-time kingdom of gangster Al Capone:
“Except in the case of classified information, not at issue here, adults in US politics today understand that they are always on stage. There is no rule of omertà in politics, except perhaps in Chicago.”
Helsinki
Coming up with a choice for the single lowest moment in the Trump administration would be a very difficult challenge, but almost any list would certainly include his press conference immediately following a closed-door, private but for translators one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin. The degradation and humiliation of the press conference was there for the whole world to witness, but no one besides the four people in the room may ever know exactly what happened during the meeting itself. One of the most stunning—and stunningly overlooked—pieces of imagery in the book does, however, offer a powerful clue:
“Trump said Putin spent a lot of time talking, and he listened, which was a switch. In fact, the US interpreter told Fiona Hill and Joe Wang later that Putin had talked for 90 percent of the time”
