An Open Letter to John Bolton

17 December 2019

An Open Letter To John Bolton and the Others Who Have Declined to Testify Before the House

Dear Ambassador Bolton and the Other Governmental Agents Who Have Failed to Disclose What they Know,

I am writing to you as an American citizen. I am willing participant in this long lived grand experiment in self government by a people who have for more than 200 years have believed in the rule of law. We, the people so far, have believed that a functioning system of a tripartite government as opposed to the whims and fiats of monarchs and autocratic leaders, should and will lead our people forward.  Most of us believe that all persons regardless of race, creed, religion or any other markers of differentiation such as sex, sexual orientation and economic status stand equal and accountable before the law.

If you have not noticed our country is in incredible turmoil.  We are being pulled apart by two different visions of America. For want of a better set of terms, and in the hopes of not using demonizing devil words, I will call these visions the liberal view and the conservative view.  We, throughout our history, have had very different views about many aspects of how we should be governed and what role the government should have in our lives.  Tense times are well known to our people, and feelings of hurt and rage linger long for those who views do not prevail.  The Civil War lingered on in the forefront of our national consciousness until all the combatants had passed. I believe much of what that war was about lingers still in the background until this day. However such tensions have given opportunity for true patriots, people of great valor, to turn us into a course correction that has then allowed us to continue to progress.

One of the things that has always saved us are the moments when persons of integrity stood up, despite what ill conceived, or inapt and self serving laws told them to do, and spoke the truth to the American people. In these moments men and women dared to take upon themselves an unbearable cost on their own lives, their careers and their families.  People have been incarcerated for years for telling the truth about the ugliness that ill advised, or misguided, or corrupt leaders wanted them to engage in and withhold from public view. People have died to insure that the core essence of our democracy remained intact.

We are at a crossroads.  There is evidence that a sitting President engaged in behaviors that acted to solicit foreign intervention in an upcoming election through the use of a delay in appropriated monies in exchange for either a claim of intention to investigate a political rival or through the conduct of an actual evaluation of that political rival.  There have always been sharp practices and dirty tricks in American politics conducted within the framework of it being our own citizens getting down in the muck.  But this, if the narrative as developed is correct, is something different.  If the narrative developed by the House majority is correct the President has moved into a realm where by using the withholding of officially authorized aid funds, he has sought to directly have another country act to impact our internal political process, and thus forever damage any claims we might have to our election system’s integrity.

At the current moment we are not at the point of picking up arms against each other, but it is only our belief in the actual structural integrity of our democracy that keeps us in this state of agitation without violence. If the House impeaches Trump and the Senate conducts a show trial coordinated between the. Senate and the White House, that is not so much trial as political farce, we will push the fabric of our country to the breaking point.  This is not gridlock over a blowjob.  This is a deeply held belief by approximately half the people of this country that our President is undermining the very institutions of our democracy.  

You have intimated in your communications through your counsel over a month ago that you have more information, highly relevant information, as to what has occurred here.  You have declined to say anything more on this because you assert you have conflicting obligations, the demand of the House that you testify and the demands of the White House based on privilege that you don’t.

Citizen Bolton, and the rest of you lot, your country could very well be unraveling before you eyes. Given the evidence previously adduced by the House if the Senate opts to simply say, “Nope, nothing here,” it may render us as a people incapable of trusting each other in the elections milieu, or of trusting in our governmental institutions, including those that oversee our most sacred right, access to the ballot box.  

Our electoral process is under attack. Senator Richard Burr’s committee found in October that Russia in 2016 engaged in extensive efforts to undermine one candidate, Ms. Clinton, and that the United States was facing similar risks in the 2020 election. If our own President is acting in a manner to taint our political process through the aid of foreign governments, and many believe he is, how can any of us trust the system we must trust in to allow us to believe we are justly governed?

Right now there is a popular phrase being floated about to encourage people when they see acts of sexual predation, or bullying, or embezzlement, or other wrongs to report these things.  The phrase is, “If you see something, say something.” Ambassador Bolton, and the rest of of you, it is time to be patriots and not not bystanders and definitely not lackeys.  If you have information that moves the arrow one way or another toward finding that the President actions were proper or improper, you need to speak up.  What we are talking about here is the health and perhaps survival of our democracy.  A cute, “I have important information” quote drug through the press is not patriotism.

Don’t’ get me wrong sir, I do believe you are a patriot, I firmly believe that.  But I think what is called for here is something above the standards of normal duties of a patriot.  You, and the others who have acceded to the White House’s demands to remain silent, must act to bring this national nightmare to its conclusion.  You, under your higher obligation to protect the integrity of this democracy, need  tell us what you really know.  If what the President did is sordid, but legal, so be it and let us end this farce and move on. If what he did constitutes an impeachable offense, let us again move the process along.  You apparently believe you hold critical and potentially key information resolving this issue.  Respond to your highest duties and a citizen and tell  it all, under oath.

Your fellow citizen,

Jay Thomas Todd, Esq