Welcome to the Logoff: President Donald Trump’s effort to have his political enemies prosecuted is heating up — and this morning, we learned that one of his top targets is his former national security adviser, John Bolton.
What happened? The FBI searched Bolton’s home beginning in the early morning hours, as part of what officials told reporters was an investigation into whether Bolton mishandled and leaked classified information.
Unusually, top DOJ and FBI officials Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino all made vague social media posts alluding to the search as it was ongoing. “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” FBI director Kash Patel posted.
What’s the background? After an acrimonious departure from the Trump administration in 2019, Bolton wrote a book giving his account of what happened — an account that was quite unflattering to Trump.
So Trump tried to stop the book from being published — and, once its publication moved forward in June 2020, he started threatening Bolton with prosecution and prison. “Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information,” he tweeted then.
Trump’s Justice Department opened an investigation that year, but the probe was reportedly abandoned in 2021, after President Joe Biden took office. Now it’s back, though officials are claiming to reporters it isn’t just about the book.
What’s the big picture? During Trump’s first term, he repeatedly demanded prosecutions of his political enemies, but these prosecutions kept not happening. 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.
The situation now is quite different. Trump has staffed the top ranks of the DOJ and FBI with personal loyalists who are not only willing to do his bidding, they’re eager to be seen as doing his bidding. That’s evident in Bondi, Patel, and Bongino taking credit for the Bolton search.
And it’s not just Bolton. Two leading Democrats who investigated Trump — Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York attorney general Letitia James — are also facing DOJ scrutiny over statements on mortgage documents.
We’re still a long way from Trump’s political enemies being locked up, though. 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.
