On Wednesday, former National Security Adviser and known warhawk John Bolton called on the deep state to block the nominations of former Hawaii Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz to President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet, seeing them as a threat to the establishment.
Trump has selected Gaetz for attorney general and Gabbard for director of national intelligence, choices that sparked backlash from deep state members, including Bolton. Speaking to NewsNation, Bolton suggested the FBI should be mobilized to investigate Gaetz and Gabbard as a way to “send a message to China that the U.S. is serious about its national security.”
“I don’t think either [Gabbard] or Matt Gaetz ought to have a confirmation hearing until they have both had full-field FBI investigations,” Bolton said. “And then I think the Chinese would say, ‘Maybe they are serious.’”
“With [Trump’s] announcement of Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, he’s sending a signal that we have lost our mind when it comes to collecting intelligence,” Bolton said. Notably, China managed to fly several spy balloons over the United States under the Biden-Harris administration.
“Given the Russian propaganda that she has espoused over the past period of time, I think [Gabbard] is a serious threat to our national security,” Bolton said.
Gaetz and Gabbard are no strangers to deep-state tactics. A whistleblower recently claimed that Gabbard was placed on a Transportation Security Administration watchlist for enhanced surveillance after she criticized President Joe Biden in a Fox News appearance. According to the report, federal air marshals monitored her on at least eight flights.
Gaetz, meanwhile, was targeted in 2021 following a New York Times report that, based on anonymous sources, accused him of possibly being involved in child sex trafficking. The allegations came after Gaetz played a role in debunking the Russia-collusion narrative, criticized biased media coverage of Black Lives Matter protests, and exposed politicized actions within the Justice Department.
After a year and a half of damaging coverage, The Washington Post, also citing anonymous sources, reported that prosecutors would not recommend charges against Gaetz due to lack of evidence. As The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway observed, the episode effectively silenced Gaetz, making it hard for him to criticize the Justice Department’s political prosecutions while under a cloud of suspicion.
Now, Bolton is urging the Biden-Harris administration to use its remaining weeks in power to have the FBI investigate Gaetz and Gabbard, viewing them as threats to the intelligence establishment.
