THE TIME JOHN BOLTON HARASSED A FEMALE GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR, ‘BEHAVING LIKE A MADMAN’

John Bolton’s new book is likely pretty accurate because he’s attacking someone very powerful, but his accounts of his own past professional behaviour contradict the more vulnerable who’ve...

...accused him of severe bullying and abuse.

In 1994, John Bolton was a lawyer for International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI), which was working for the government agency USAID on a project in Kyrgyzstan. USAID contractor Melody Townsel decided to blow the...

...whistle on IBTCI, having grown critical of their performance. According to Townsel, who gave a statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during Bolton’s confirmation hearing for the role of UN Ambassador in 2005, when she was flown to Moscow to give a briefing on...

...the situation Bolton harassed her at the Aerostar Hotel where she was staying. ‘Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel – throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman,’ said Townsel.

‘He made unconscionable comments about my weight, my wardrobe and, with a couple of team leaders, my sexuality, hinting that I was a lesbian (for the record, I’m not)’, Townsel also stated. This behaviour would be seemingly typical for John Bolton, who was once described...

...as ‘a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy’ and ‘a serial bully’ by former State Department official Carl W. Ford Jr. Townsel believed that the abusive treatment she was subjected to by Bolton was triggered by a letter she had sent to USAID criticising...

IBTCI… and went on for a full two weeks. During this period Bolton, apparently, regularly pounded on the door of her room in complete disregard of her personal time and space. He was able to sustain this pattern of intimidating conduct at close quarters because IBTCI had...

...offices in the Aerostar and Townsel felt diffident about seeking out alternative accommodation in Moscow. Bolton’s hectoring campaign, it seems, was not just fierce but calculated. ‘His behavior back in 1994 wasn’t just unforgivable, it was pathological,’ wrote the...

...Dallas businesswoman in a letter to the senate committee reviewing Bolton’s suitability to represent America at the UN. In the end, due to this and other grave concerns about Bolton’s character and qualifications, Senate Democrats postponed the vote on his nomination and...

...George Bush eventually installed him in the ambassadorship via a recess appointment. In December 2006, Bolton announced he would leave the role and, in 2008, trashed Bush in an op-ed, whereupon the latter bemoaned having wasted political capital on him for essentially no...

...reward, yet another brick in the wall of evidence that nobody likes John Bolton.