Next on Trump’s revenge tour: John Bolton
John Bolton, once President Donald Trump’s national security adviser and now one of his fiercest critics, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland, according to CNN.
Bolton, who is expected to turn himself in as early as Friday, is just the latest in a series of criminal cases involving figures who have crossed paths with Trump and found themselves in his political crosshairs.
The FBI raided Bolton and his office in Washington two months ago, seizing several files labeled “confidential” and documents apparently referring to weapons of mass destruction, according to Policy.
It remains unclear whether the charges brought by prosecutors stem directly from what officers discovered. CNN also reports that Bolton allegedly shared highly classified information with his wife and daughter via email.
Bolton, a former ambassador to the UN and longtime foreign policy hawk, has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics since he left the administration. He called Trump is unfit for office in his tell-all memoir and regularly dynamited his management of world affairs, making him a prime target of the president’s anger.
Trump didn’t wait long to respond to the raid, call Bolton is a “sleaze” and compares the search to his own ordeal at Mar-a-Lago.
“It’s not a good feeling,” Trump told reporters.
But his animosity towards Bolton is not new. In 2020, Trump said Fox News: “I believe he’s a criminal and I believe, frankly, he should go to prison” for allegedly mishandling classified information.
Bolton’s legal team rejected the claims. Attorney Abbot Lowell said that Bolton committed no wrongdoing and that the documents seized were “ordinary records” for a former public servant.
The timing of this case is hard to ignore, as it comes just weeks after the Justice Department filed charges against two other high-profile Trump foes: the former FBI director. James Comeywho led the investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign, and New York Attorney General Letitia Jameswho attacked the Trump Organization in a civil fraud case. Both have denied any wrongdoing, and critics say the wave of accusations portends a broader campaign of retaliation.
According to ABC Newsthe Bolton case is being handled out of the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland, unlike the Comey and James cases, which a Trump-appointed prosecutor is leading in Virginia. Reuters also reported that some career prosecutors initially resisted moving forward, saying further investigation was needed, but that senior DOJ officials ultimately followed through.
The political issues are obvious. Trump built his comeback campaign around punishing his perceived enemies, often leans DOJ to act. Earlier this year, he even deleted a federal prosecutor who, according to him, was not acting quickly enough against his opponents.
Bolton, meanwhile, has already paid the price for speaking out. In January, Trump stripped him of his security clearance and Secret Service protection – a move widely seen as retaliation.
The indictment is almost certain to spark a bitter fight over whether the DOJ follows the law or caves to political pressure.
And for Bolton, it marks yet another collision with the president he once served — a reminder of how personal Trump’s pursuit of his critics has become.
