More on John Wolf's and Alan Foley's interviews with Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff yesterday, from the Washington Post's Dafna Linzer. Up shot? Bolton tried to get fired or disciplined at least four people at State, and at least one at CIA, because he disagreed with their views, contrary to what he said at his testimony a couple weeks back. Three of the cases we've heard about (Fulton Armstrong, Christian Westermann, Rexon Ryu), but two are still under wraps, and the targets of Bolton's wrath are still working at State. Linzer writes:

In an interview yesterday with Republican and Democratic staff members, Wolf elaborated on that incident [involving Ryu] in 2003 and told the committee for the first time that Bolton demanded disciplinary actions against other career officials who offered views that differed from his own. To protect the officials' privacy, Wolf did not name them to the committee staff or describe the nature of the views they offered...

Committee sources said [former CIA WINPAC director Alan Foley] confirmed testimony provided by Stuart Cohen, the former acting director of the National Intelligence Council, that Bolton had tried to fire the national intelligence officer for Latin America who disagreed with Bolton's assertions about an alleged bioweapons programs in Cuba.

"Foley told us that Bolton's chief of staff, Fred Fleitz, called him up and said that Bolton wanted the analyst fired," one committee investigator said. Bolton has denied that he sought to fire the officer.

The committee also interviewed Thomas Hubbard, the former ambassador to South Korea, who reiterated earlier statements that he did not approve a controversial speech Bolton gave on North Korea, as Bolton had testified in his confirmation hearing.

Bolton tried to get multiple people fired because he disagreed with their professional analysis and judgment. They were right and he was wrong. And he lied in his testimony to the Senate about whether he tried to get people fired. And Bolton allegedly used NSA intercepts to snoop on his American bureaucratic enemies, in violation of the spirit and letter of all US civil liberties laws and protections.

Posted by Laura at April 29, 2005 09:31 AM