NYT: Say, There May Be More to Bolton Probe Than Just Retribution

The deuce you say. 

When the FBI arrived at John Bolton’s house to execute a search warrant, critics of Donald Trump thundered about revenge, retribution, and Trump’s “authoritarian” impulses. The only reason for an investigation into Trump’s one-time nat-sec advisor, the Protection Racket Media claimed, was to get even with Bolton for his sharp (and as it turned out, inaccurate) criticism of his former boss. Trump was ‘weaponizing’ the FBI, they claimed, an ironic charge given the lawfare conducted against Trump for the previous eight years but especially during the Biden administration. 

It turns out that the FBI had good reason to re-open a probe into Bolton, after the Joe Biden Department of Justice shut down an initial investigation. A mole working from an unidentified spy agency provided evidence that Bolton had used unclassified systems to transmit classified data, mainly as a means to gather material for the book he published over the objections of the US intel services. 

The New York Times began its backpedal overnight:

The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.

The investigation of Mr. Bolton, who has become an ardent critic of the president, burst back into public view last week when federal agents searched his Maryland home and Washington office.

While those searches have raised fresh questions about the extent to which Mr. Trump may be using the Justice Department and F.B.I. to try to punish those he dislikes, the new details of the case present a more complex chain of events. The disclosures suggest that a long-running investigation into Mr. Bolton’s activities changed over time, with some of the issues echoing past inquiries into the handling of national security secrets.

The emails in question, according to the people, were sent by Mr. Bolton and included information that appeared to derive from classified documents he had seen while he was national security adviser. Mr. Bolton apparently sent the messages to people close to him who were helping him gather material that he would ultimately use in his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

This brings us to the search warrant. The FBI, which has jurisdiction over domestic counter-intelligence, needed to validate the intel provided by the mole in question. They searched his home to find out whether the material the mole provided matched material in Bolton’s possession. If so, then that would strengthen any case that Bolton violated laws that cover the handling of classified and sensitive material — basically a replay of the Hillary Clinton debacle that got short-circuited by Loretta Lynch and James Comey in 2016. 

And not too coincidentally, the Biden DoJ tried to prosecute Trump for the same crime. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago to look for classified material, and Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel, who tried launching two separate criminal prosecutions against Trump. When it became known that Joe Biden had hoarded classified material at his residence, Garland had to appoint a special counsel to cover his ass. Robert Hur declined to prosecute Biden for precisely the same alleged violations because Biden was clearly suffering from dementia, as the recordings of his deposition of Biden made obvious. 

Thus, the question isn’t why the Trump DoJ is taking an interest in Bolton. The new intel certainly justifies that interest, at least for an investigation. The question is why the Biden-era DoJ and Merrick Garland dropped the probe of Bolton even when it appears that cause existed to suspect he’d mishandled classified material as well. Bolton during that time (and before) became an outspoken critic of Trump, who was widely anticipated to run for another term as president. It’s certainly worth considering whether Garland et al wanted Bolton to remain untainted while acting as a right-leaning attack dog for Biden. 

We will have to wait for answers to those questions. First up will be whether the FBI matched the intel to documents in Bolton’s possession, and whether they can establish that a crime was committed. If they do, then the answers to the other questions may come more easily. 

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.

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