Senator Richard Lugar’s intervention in the efforts by Biden’s team to request information from the administration on John Bolton’s activities has had a chilling effect on the investigation. The impact on the collegiality and good will between the staffs on both sides of the Committee has been seriously wounded.
TWN has also learned that there is tension brewing between the Majority Staff (the Republicans) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the personal staff members of the Republican Senators on the Committee.
Apparently, several of the Republican Members actually are trying to read the interview transcripts and get a handle on the growing pile of John Bolton related material. It has become voluminous — hundreds and hundreds of pages of discussion with great numbers of people who have outlined incident after incident of John Bolton’s recklessness with diplomacy, intelligence, and personal venom.
Allegedly, the Committee majority staff members have done nearly nothing to help process any of the materials that have been developed during the investigation. They are providing no digests of materials or highlighted passages of importance in the material. In other words, the Republican staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are engaged in trying to hinder access to important evidence on Bolton from THEIR OWN TEAM.
TWN has confirmed the impression of this problem in several Republican Senators’ personal offices but after making several inquiries did not have comment back from Senator Lugar’s spokesman or any other communications or policy staff from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
— Steve Clemons
