April 13, 2005
John Bolton - Where have we seen him before?
Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the Palm Beach County canvassing board, holds up the last ballot the board was able to consider in the manual recount of ballots as Democratic lawyer Mark White, left, and Republican lawyer John Bolton watch at the Palm Beach County Emergency Operations Center Sunday, Nov. 26, 2000, in West Palm Beach, Fla. On Election Day 2004 partisan lawyers are planning to be at polling places they consider important or prone to trouble as the best remembered controversies in the 2000 Florida election grew from technical voting problems, many of which still exist; an estimated 32 million voters in 19 states will use punch cards. -AP File Photo
----
Diplomat says he received no assurance of a reward
Bolton, the U.S. diplomat now responsible for arms control issues, said no payoff was promised for his decision to join the post-election fray. He had worked for the first Bush administration and, finding himself in South Korea on election night, contacted former Secretary of State James Baker in Texas to see how he might lend a hand. The reply: Go to Florida.
''I think, frankly, most of the people who did it just went down there by instinct,'' Bolton said. He said he received no legal fees, although the campaign paid his hotel bills and other expenses.
Bolton was part of the legal team and a ballot observer in Palm Beach County. Then he rushed to Tallahassee as the recount battle reached higher courts.
It was his role, on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2000, to burst into a library where workers were recounting Miami-Dade ballots and relay news of the U.S. Supreme Court's stay in the on-again, off-again presidential recount.
''I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count,'' he was quoted as saying in news reports at the time.
The Florida fraternity included major figures in the Bush administration, notably Theodore Olson, the current solicitor general, who worked on the case in both Tallahassee and Miami, then argued candidate Bush's case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Robert Zoellick, now the U.S. trade representative, who served as a virtual chief of staff to Baker, Bush's main Florida strategist…
----
So - this is about payback for helping Bush steal the 2000 election. Interesting that the corporate media isn't mentioning this. Especially since this is an Associated Press story.