President Donald Trump’s effort to prosecute his political enemies heated up Friday, as the FBI conducted an early morning search at the home of John Bolton, a one-time adviser who Trump has bitterly feuded with for years.
The search, which an administration official said was “court authorized,” reportedly pertains to an investigation into Bolton for leaking classified information. Trump has insisted that Bolton should be prosecuted since 2020.
Unusually, several top DOJ and FBI officials posted (in vague terms) about the search on social media as it was happening. “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” FBI director Kash Patel posted at 7:03 am.
“Public corruption will not be tolerated,” Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino responded. “Justice will be pursued. Always,” Attorney General Pam Bondi chimed in.
Coming after the Epstein files debacle that made these officials look incompetent and disingenuous, this messaging is their effort to prove that they are, in fact, delivering the retribution the MAGA base and the president crave.
The Bolton investigation is one of several that are reportedly underway against top Democrats and former Trump aides. But the early morning search is the most visible sign of investigative activity in any of these probes yet. Whether any of these will result in charges, though, remains to be seen.
Trump himself was indicted for mishandling classified documents that he’d taken to Mar-a-Lago after he left office in 2021. (A right-wing judge slow-walked the prosecution, preventing it from going to trial.)
But Trump’s effort to have Bolton sent to prison — and his broader desire to prosecute Democrats, officials who investigated him, and former aides who turned against him — goes back further, to his first term. And so far, it seems significantly more effective this time.
The saga of purported classified information in Bolton’s book
Bolton, a hawkish hardliner who served in foreign policy roles in several GOP administrations, was Trump’s national security adviser for about a year and a half during Trump’s first term, until his tenure ended in acrimony in September 2019.
After departing the White House, Bolton immediately began writing a book about his experience, with many unflattering accounts of Trump’s conduct. (He called it The Room Where It Happened, after a song in the musical Hamilton.) Word of the book’s contents related to Trump’s first impeachment proceedings leaked, and the president was furious.
To try to stop the book’s publication, Trump claimed that it contained classified information, and he insisted that he would “consider every conversation with me, as president, highly classified.” He went on: “So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the book gets out, he’s broken the law. And I would think that he would have criminal problems.”
Or, in tweet form: “Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.”
Trump’s assertion that “every conversation” with him was classified is preposterous, but the question of what counts as classified information has long been thorny for former officials trying to disclose national security policymaking details. Bolton at first followed the typical process for such disclosures by submitting his manuscript to National Security Council officials for “pre-publication review,” so they could suggest striking anything classified. But Trump appointees eventually pushed out the official conducting the review, and essentially brought the process to a halt.
Wanting to get the book out before Trump’s reelection, Bolton then decided to go ahead and publish in June 2020 without the government’s okay. The administration sued to try to block it, and though a judge had some very harsh words for Bolton, he let the publication proceed, saying, “the damage is done.”
By September 2020, prosecutors had convened a grand jury looking into the matter. But in 2021, after Trump lost reelection and DOJ leadership changed hands, the case was reportedly closed.
With Trump back in office, the prosecution has evidently been revived. An official involved in the investigation told the New York Times that the investigation was about Bolton leaking classified information to damage Trump — it wasn’t just about the book and included actions Bolton took in the past few years.
Investigations of Trump’s enemies are actually happening this time
During Trump’s first term, he repeatedly demanded prosecutions of his political enemies, but these prosecutions kept not happening.
As I wrote at the time, DOJ officials who understood and cared about the law kept slow-walking or bottling up investigations they thought were bogus. Trump often fumed about this, but couldn’t manage to do anything about it.
His second term is a different story. He’s staffed the top ranks of the DOJ and the FBI with personal loyalists who are not only willing to do his bidding, but they’re eager to be seen as doing his bidding. That’s evident in Bondi, Patel, and Bongino taking credit for the Bolton search. All three care about their “cred” among the MAGA base, and want to take a victory lap, even if it makes the investigation look more political.
Then there’s “Eagle” Ed Martin, who earlier this year did a stint as US attorney for the District of Columbia, but now is heading the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group.” This group is purportedly targeting people who weaponized law enforcement against Trump and his allies, but in practice seems to be doing their own weaponization against targets like Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
In practice, we’re still a long way away from Trump’s political enemies being locked up. To bring charges, prosecutors will have to convince grand juries to indict. To sustain charges, they’ll have to convince judges that they’re appropriate. To convict, they’ll have to convince juries. And even after conviction, there’s the appeal process.
But it’s clear that any internal hesitations the DOJ once had about being seen as targeting Trump’s enemies are gone. Now, that’s exactly how it wants to be seen.
