John Bolton Net Worth and 5 Other Interesting Facts About The Former NSA

Despite the controversies that have plagued his name for so long, John Bolton is one name that would not be forgotten in American politics in a hurry. He is a renowned figure of the Republican party with several works and issues of significance to his name.

Bolton served as a foreign policy adviser to U.S. senator Mitt Romney when he was the 2012 presidential nominee for the Republican Party. Moreso, he has served in various capacities in American politics, including as National Security advisor to Donald Trump and senior adviser to Freedom Capital Investment Management.

Also, a political commentator who has worked with Fox News Channel, Bolton became a topic of discussion on various platforms following his fracas with President Donald Trump in the Ukraine scandal, which led to the sitting president’s impeachment trial.

The U.S. president labeled Bolton a traitor for reasons revolving around the latter’s reservations about his government. Trump called for censoring Bolton’s book, which reportedly contains information capable of implicating him in the impeachment trial.

6. John Bolton’s Net Worth Is Currently Estimated At $6 Million 

John Bolton has multiple sources of income, and it is quite impossible to keep track of all the ways he makes his money. Nonetheless, it is believed that he is worth at least $6 million, and the following are the ways through which he accumulated the fortune.

Career Earnings as an Attorney

As far as we know, John Bolton started building his net worth in 1972 when David A. Keene hired him as a summer intern for the 39th vice president of the United States, Spiro Agnew. By 1974, he started working as an associate of Covington & Burling LLP, a multinational law firm headquartered in Washington D.C. Bolton worked at the D.C. office first from 1974 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1985.

Disregarding that, he was also a partner at Lerner, Reed, Bolton & McManus. Records have it that he worked at this law firm from 1993 to 1999. His career as an attorney also saw him work as a special counsel to the Washington office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP for about a decade, from 2008 to 2018. Sometime in late 2015, it was reported that the impact investing asset manager, Freedom Capital Investment Management, made John Bolton one of its senior advisors.

While what the attorney made from all of these positions has never been disclosed to the public, it is pretty obvious that his career as an attorney laid the foundation for Bolton to grow his wealth.

Salaries From The Various Political Positions He Has Held

John Bolton has served the government of the United States in multiple capacities, so much that it is quite challenging to keep track of the positions he has held. These positions date back to the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations.

Bolton majorly served within the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Justice Department, and the State Department. If we are not mistaken, the first significant position he held in government was as the Assistant Administrator of USAID for Program and Policy Coordination. He was appointed to the position on August 2, 1982, and held it until December 30, 1983.

On December 12, 1985, Bolton became the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs, a position he held until July 27, 1988, when he was made the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division.

He vacated the office in January 1989, and by May of that same year, he became the 18th Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. His next significant office came in May 2001 when he became the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.

John left the office in July 2005, and the following month saw him become the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Fast forward to April 2018, he assumed office under the Donald Trump administration as the 27th United States National Security Advisor. These are important offices, and the salaries that Bolton received from serving in them contributed to his wealth in no small manner.

Paychecks from His Punditry at Fox News 

Many Americans and people across the globe got to know John Bolton from his punditry which is also one of the major sources of his income. Bolton is a political commentator who has shared his opinion and views on various platforms, especially Fox News Channel.

It was on Fox and Friends that he confirmed in December 2016 that he was being considered for the Secretary of States position by the Trump administration. Before this, he had made multiple appearances on several platforms of the network.

Reports have it that he has been a paid Fox News contributor since 2006. A 2019 lawsuit disclosed that he made $569,423 from the network in 2017. This means he has been one of the highest-earning contributors at Fox News. It is said that the average salary for political commentators working for cable networks is $73,300 a year. Considering this, it is not hard to see that being a political pundit has been a stable source of income for John Bolton.

5. The 75-Year-Old Diplomat Was Born and Raised In Baltimore, Maryland

As you would easily find, John was born on November 20, 1948, and his place of birth was in Baltimore, Maryland. He was also raised here, precisely in Yale Heights, a neighborhood you will find in the Southwest District of Baltimore.

His mother, Virginia Clara “Ginny” (née Godfrey), was a housewife, whereas his father, Edward Jackson “Jack” Bolton, was a Baltimore City fireman. John was a brilliant child and an exceptional student; he attended McDonough School on scholarship.

While at the private coeducational school in Owings Mills, Maryland, he started to exhibit his political traits and reportedly ran the school’s Students For Goldwater campaign; this was in 1964.

When he graduated in 1966, he decided to further his education at the prestigious Yale University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He was also politically active at Yale; from what we gathered, he was a member of the Yale Political Union.

After obtaining his BA, John Bolton decided to attend Yale Law School located in New Haven, Connecticut. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the institution in 1974. The same year he graduated from the law school of Yale University was the year he started working as an associate in the Washington office of Covington & Burling.

4. John Bolton Supported The Vietnam War But Ducked Combat 

Although the Vietnam War was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the United States was heavily involved in it. Alongside other anti-communist allies like Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, and South Korea, the country supported South Vietnam, whereas the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies supported North Vietnam.

Over time, it has been a common opinion that the United States military intervention in the war was misguided. John Bolton is one of those who beg to differ, he was a supporter of the Vietnam War, but he avoided combat.

As the story goes, John Bolton drew number 185 at the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery. The U.S. government relied mostly on the draft rather than the reserve forces for its military input to the Vietnam War. Given that, joining a Reserve or Guard unit potentially eliminated the chances of being called for combat, which was exactly what Bolton did. Instead of waiting for his draft number to be called for service, he joined Maryland Army National Guard, where he served for four years. After this, he joined and served in the United States Army Reserve until his enlistment ended.

John has been upfront about evading fighting in a war he supported. He is quoted to have said: “… I had no desire to die in Southeast Asian rice paddy.” And in his 2007 book titled Surrender Is Not an Option, he contended that there is no point dying for your country when it wouldn’t amount to anything.

3. His Regime as National Security Adviser Came to an Abrupt End Following a Fallout with Donald Trump

Bolton was appointed U.S. National Security Adviser by President Donald Trump in April 2018. It initially seemed Trump was very enthused about working with John Bolton; this is so because the then-president made Bolton his advisor even though H. R. McMaster won the appointment after a successful interview.

With his appointment, Bolton became the man of the moment. He extensively disrupted the way things were at the National Security Council, seeing to the resignation of multiple employees of the council while challenging the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Things seemed to be going his way until it emerged that Trump fired him; this was on September 10, 2019.

Trump took to Twitter to share that he informed Bolton the previous day that his services were no longer needed and that the diplomat complied by putting forward his resignation on September 10. According to the former president, he dismissed John Bolton because of the many disagreements they were having about foreign policies.

Nevertheless, John has maintained that he was never fired. After Trump tweeted that he fired Bolton, the latter also took to the platform to relate that he offered to resign on September 9 and Trump said: “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.” According to Bolton, he resigned of his own accord the following day, and Trump never asked for his resignation.

2. John Bolton Was One of Those Invited to Testify During The Impeachment Inquiry Against Donald Trump

The Ukraine scandal was one of the many associated with the Donald Trump administration. Shortly after Bolton’s resignation, it came to light that the former security adviser resigned because he was unwilling to support President Trump’s move to push Ukraine into investigating his opponents.

While this emanated from testimony by former National Security Council’s senior director for Europe and Russia, Fiona Hill, it gave rise to an impeachment trial, and Congress looked forward to hearing testimony from John Bolton and other officials.

However, the former Advisor turned downed every invitation to testify in Congress. His reason for boycotting Trump’s impeachment trial remains a mystery to the public. But amid the controversy, talks emerged about an unpublished book by Bolton, which contained the former advisor’s revelations that Trump was indeed bent on investigating members of his opposition, including current president Joe Biden, through the Ukrainian government.

Bolton, who eventually became a prominent name attached to the controversy, never testified in Congress, and Donald Trump was ultimately acquitted in the impeachment trial. Trump later called for the censoring of Bolton’s book, calling the diplomat a traitor bent on divulging classified information.

He took to Twitter to attack Bolton and contend that his book must not be published until the end of the 2020 presidential elections. But then, the memoir titled The Room Where It Happened had somehow been leaked to the public. This led to a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. The inquiry was meant to find out if the book revealed classified information but was dropped in June 2021.

1. He Has Been Married Twice and Has Only One Child

John is one of such famous figures who seem to have no life outside what they do for a living. The political commentator has been so engaged with his career that it has cast a huge shadow over his personal life. Many people don’t know that he is a divorcee and father to only one child. The first time the diplomat got married was around the same time he was hired to work for vice president Spiro Agnew. John Bolton got married to his first wife, Christine Bolton, in 1972, and they divorced in 1983 for reasons best known to them.

Three years later, in January 1986, he got married to his current wife, Gretchen Smith Bolton. From what we gathered, his wife is a financial planner who works with Axa Advisors. She is also the mother of Bolton’s only child, a daughter named Jennifer Sarah Bolton.