John Bolton knocks Pompeo’s ‘character’ after ex-Trump secretary dubs him ‘scumbag loser’

Ex-State Department chief takes swings at multiple former colleagues in upcoming memoir

Former national security adviser John Bolton has responded after his former colleague, Mike Pompeo, called him a “scumbag loser” and said that he wanted to see the former White House aide thrown in federal prison.

The clash began with descriptions of Mr Bolton in Mr Pompeo’s upcoming memoir, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, which is publishing next week. Excerpts of the writings were published on Thursday in The Guardian.

In them, Mr Pompeo is unsparing in his criticism of his former colleagues with the notable exception of Donald Trump himself. In Mr Bolton’s case, the former secretary accused him of leaking classified material with the publication of his own memoir, The Room Where it Happened. Mr Bolton has long denied this, and the dispute was the subject of a Justice Department inquiry that ended in 2021.

Mr Pompeo further wrote that he hoped to testify at a criminal trial against Mr Bolton, whom he said should “be in jail, for spilling classified information”.

In a statement to The Independent, Mr Bolton further noted that his book had gone through a review process with the national security council before its release.

And he added of Mr Pompeo’s remarks: “Mr Pompeo’s statements (in his upcoming book) to the contrary tell you more about his character than about my book”.

The two men could end up sharing a debate stage in 2024, as both have made little secret of having potential presidential ambitions; Mr Bolton, though, has couched his as a potential means of blocking Donald Trump from winning again.

Mr Pompeo has remained highly active in conservative circles since the end of the Trump administration and even taken steps to boost his name recognition and profile in early primary states as he builds the groundwork for a bid to win the GOP nomination.

Mr Trump has already entered the 2024 race, and announced his bid for the presidency at Mar-a-Lago last year despite remaining under a slew of criminal investigations. Mr Pompeo has largely remained a defender of the former president over the past two years and may be positioned well to serve as his old boss’s running mate should the ex-president win the Republican nomination again.

The former secretary also attacked another potential 2024 rival in the released excerpts from his book. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who left the governor’s mansion in 2017 to join the Trump administration only to leave a year later, is accused in the book of abandoning both her state and the American people.

“She has described her role as going toe-to-toe with tyrants,” wrote Mr Pompeo, according to The Guardian. “If so, then why would she quit such an important job at such an important time?”

The Independent has reached out to Ms Haley for comment.