SENTENCING BOLTON

         “John R. Bolton…pleaded guilty on Friday to mishandling classified information in a case that could send him to prison for five years.” ---NYT, 6-27-26

 

         Of course, he’s not going to jail.  Guys like him never go to jail.  They’re too important, you know.  Insider traders in Congress never go to jail.  Fauci will never go to jail.  Hillary will never go to jail, or James Comey.  Even Sam Brinton never went to jail.  He was in charge of nuclear waste disposal in Biden’s Office of Nuclear Energy, and he was arrested THREE DIFFERENT TIMES for stealing luggage in three different airports (in Nevada, Minnesota, and Washington D.C.).  Brinton got probation and fines each time.

 

         There’s an argument that prison is pointless in these cases, and I get the argument.  These are not violent criminals, and once they are severed from public life, they probably pose no more danger to society or the body politic.  That’s why they get fined, and have to write apology letters, and make restitution, and do community service.  Bolton will probably have to do “community service,” and for self-important muckety-mucks like him, that normally means he will give a series of lectures to college students or work for a court-approved non-profit for some specified number of hours.

 

         I have a different idea.  People like Bolton, people who abuse the power they acquire through public office (whether elected or appointed), do so in part because of the arrogant conceit they are too smart and wonderful to ever face justice. These creatures need to be brought back to earth.  If we are not going to put them in prison, we can at least do that.

 

 On a nice summer day in 1961, at a posh country estate in Buckinghamshire, the UK Secretary of State John Profumo happened to see Christine Keeler emerge naked from a swimming pool.  He would come to know Ms. Keeler, a call girl, much better in the days and months ahead.

 

When the scandal broke, he stood in Parliament with the Prime Minister next to him and declared there had been “no impropriety” in his relationship with Christine Keeler.  This lie (rather than the affair itself), was his downfall.  In 1963, he resigned from Parliament and his other government duties.  There was no attempt to seek sympathy for his failures.  There was no interview by Oprah.  Instead, he volunteered at a charitable organization in London called Toynbee Hall, where he washed dishes and scrubbed floors until his death forty years later.  He never returned to public life.

 

I’m not suggesting forty years of drudgery for Bolton or Fauci or Pelosi or McConnell or Comey or Clinton or Brinton.  But how about a year?  Twelve months of it could put a much softer edge on the imperiousness and pomposity at the root of their crimes.  Scrubbing toilets can be a humbling experience and humility is primarily what they need.  Having an important position in Washington apparently makes you think you are a sort-of God.  Our criminal justice system can deal with that, if it is willing to. 

 

Copyright2026MichaelKubacki