Donald Trump’s new hire John Bolton has close ties to Cambridge Analytica and Trump-Russia

| 7:05 pm EDT March 23, 2018
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Yesterday Donald Trump fired National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and replaced him with John Bolton. This was an eyebrow raising move in its own right, both because Bolton is his third National Security Adviser in just over a year, and because Bolton’s record paints him as a neoconservative extremist lover of war. It gets even more alarming, because John Bolton has ties to Cambridge Analytica, the voter data firm recently thrust to the center of the Trump-Russia scandal.

Last year John Bolton gave a speech praising Cambridge Analytica, which has since been posted to YouTube (link). This love wasn’t coming from afar, as Time Magazine has revealed that Bolton runs a Super PAC that’s spent more than a million dollars hiring Cambridge Analytica in political campaigns dating back to 2014 (link). This places Bolton firmly within the Trump-Russia scandal as well.

Trump’s hiring of Bolton makes little political sense. Trump has routinely lambasted the neoconservative foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, which was largely crafted by Bolton. Now, even as Cambridge Analytica – a company hired by Bolton – has come front and center in the Trump Russia scandal, suddenly Trump is bringing Bolton close into the fold. This comes shortly after Trump hired another one of the key data gurus from his campaign, Brad Parscale, to run his 2020 reelection campaign.

Why is Donald Trump now surrounding himself with people who are associated with the controversial voter data work done by his campaign? Is he bringing these people close in an attempt at motivating them not to testify in the Trump-Russia investigation, now that the scandal is focused so heavily on Cambridge Analytica? The firm stole user data from fifty million Facebook users, and its execs have been caught on camera discussing bribing and blackmailing their way to election victory. In any case, John Bolton just became a key figure in the Trump-Russia scandal by taking this job at this time. He may end up regretting it.