Bolton Installs Anti-Muslim Wingnut As NSC Chief of Staff
By Eric Levitz
@EricLevitz
Excerpt:
lined with Arabic signs guiding “radicalized Muslims†into the U.S.
Michael Flynn’s tenure in the Trump administration proved brief, but his penchant for paranoid conspiracy theories did not leave the National Security Council with him: By the time Flynn was ousted, he had already installed staffers who sought to advance the security interests of the United States by, among other things, drafting a “memo†claiming that Marxists, Islamists, the “deep state,†globalists, Bankers, and Establishment Republicans were all conspiring to destroy President Trump because he posed an “existential threat†to “cultural Marxist†memes.
Once H.R. McMaster got settled in the West Wing, he evicted Flynn’s infowarriors from the building. The “Establishment†general proceeded to put together a more conventionally hawkish — and less flagrantly Islamophobic — national security team. But Trump soon grew tired of McMaster’s dry briefings and insufficient sycophancy, and abruptly replaced him with John Bolton.
While less flamboyant in fear and loathing of Muslims than Flynn was, Bolton is one of many fringe neoconservatives who’s taken up residence in the alt-right-wing foreign-policy think tanks erected by the Islamophobia industry: Since 2013, Bolton has served as chairman of the Gatestone Institute, an organization that claims Muslims have established hundreds of “microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law†(a.k.a. “no-go zonesâ€) throughout France; that Muslim refugees have brought “a rape epidemic†and “exotic diseases†with them to Germany; and that the United Kingdom is on the cusp of becoming an “Islamist colony.â€
And now, Bolton is remaking the National Security Council in his image. On Tuesday, Trump’s latest national security adviser named former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz as his chief of staff. Here are a few things worth knowing about the man who will now play a lead role in coordinating America’s national security policy:
• Fleitz served as Bolton’s chief of staff when the latter was undersecretary of State in George W. Bush’s administration. In that role, Fleitz fought viciously with analysts at the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency — because they refused to let Bolton publicly claim that Cuba was attempting to acquire biological weapons, on the basis of his idiosyncratic interpretation of intelligence reports. In declassified email exchanges, Fleitz derided the State Department’s assessment that there was insufficient evidence to claim Cuba was seeking illegal weapons as “wimpy.†The State Department’s top expert on biological weapons, Christian P. Westermann, meanwhile, wrote a colleague that Bolton and Fleitz’s “personal attacks, harassment and impugning of my integrity†were “now affecting my work, my health and dedication to public service.â€
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/05/bolton-fred-fleitz-center-security-policy-nsc-chief-of-staff.html 
