The John Bolton Indictment Is Different

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Hey, everyone. Ellie here wishing you a happy Friday. My God, what a week. Do I say this every week? What a week? I don't know, but I mean it this week. Look, we knew the Bolton indictment was going to arrive probably on Thursday, and it just has arrived. I record this.

And that's going to be the topic of our main podcast today. But let's not even forget all the other things that happened this week. We heard the first public commentary from Jack Smith, I think, since he left office. I had some response to that on air, and maybe we'll talk about it. that next week. We had ongoing court decisions about the president's ability to lay off people during the shutdown. We had major Supreme Court arguments.

over gerrymandering and racial discrimination in the drawing of congressional lines. We had decisions about the deployment of the National Guard and ICE. And it's a lot, folks. So what we try to do every week on this podcast is pick one important thing and dig in.

Obviously, Bolton had to be the story today, so we're going to get into that. But send us your thoughts, questions, and comments, because we need to do a mailbag. Like, we are overdue for a mailbag, and I want to go through whatever is on your mind. Maybe we'll do that as a bonus sometime soon. Send them in. Letters. at cafe.com.

You ever get the sense that Donald Trump and John Bolton might not like each other? Bolton, who served as national security advisor in the first Trump administration, has publicly called the president, and I quote, a danger for the republic. stunningly uninformed and unfit for office. Trump, in turn, has branded Bolton a sleazebag, actually.

The actually part makes me laugh. A very dumb person and the owner of a, quote, stupid white mustache. I'm sorry, folks. I'm going to laugh anytime there's a ridiculous playground level insult. Stupid white mustache is objectively funny. Upon publication of Bolton's 2020 tell-all book, Trump responded, quote, I believe that he's a criminal and I believe, frankly, he should go to jail for that. Trump might get his wish.

While Bolton firmly resides on Trump's enemies list, the indictment returned against him on Thursday in federal district court in Maryland also bears substantial hallmarks of legitimacy.

Trump surely takes retributive delight in Bolton's prosecution and has encouraged it in unsettled ways. At the same time, the Bolton indictment appears to have genuine merit. The indictment charges Bolton with 18 federal crimes, nine related to transmitting sensitive national defense information, and nine more for improperly retaining the same.

The information at issue contained deadly serious government secrets. Bolton allegedly disclosed to outsiders information about future attack plans by foreign adversary groups, details of impending missile launches by foreign adversaries, information about sensitive...

intelligence sources and assessments about leaders of foreign countries. Apparently, Bolton would type up notes based on information he learned as national security advisor. He'd then use his AOL account, yes, AOL, to email, quote, entries to two people, both relatives of his, who had no security clearances. Bolton also allegedly kept highly sensitive documents.

inside his private home. There's no doubt that Bolton, a one-time U.S. ambassador and national security advisor, was well aware of the rules governing handling of classified information. As the indictment notes, he said publicly in 2017, If you're conscious of the need to protect classified information, you'll remember what the rules are. If I had done at the State Department what Hillary Clinton did, I'd be wearing an orange jumpsuit now.

More recently, in 2025, Bolton railed against various public officials who committed the, quote, original sin, as Bolton then phrased it, of communicating about sensitive national security matters over the Signal app. The legal takeaway? A defense of ignorance or lack of intent won't fly. Bolton, through his attorney, categorically denies wrongdoing.

While we now have a clear sense of the prosecution's theory of criminality, we don't yet have a definitive read on the strength of the proof against Bolton or on Bolton's defense. That'll come in time as the Justice Department turns over Discovery to the defense, as the parties file.

motions in court, and eventually when the case goes to trial. But for now, we can look at a series of reliable collateral indicators that suggest this prosecution is legitimate. Consider first that the Justice Department's reportedly escalated during the Biden. administration. Trump surely was delighted to find it waiting for him when he took office, but unlike the cases against Jim Comey and Letitia James, this one was not originated by the president and his band of gleeful political enforcers.

It also appears that the Bolton matter arose organically and not because some official decided to root around for dirt buried in the mortgage files of a disfavored subject. According to public reporting and court documents filed in connection with search warrants conducted at Bolton's home. and office in August, the criminal inquiry began when U.S. intelligence officials learned that Bolton's AOL email account had been hacked.

by a foreign government, Iran specifically. The New York Times reported that those emails contained, quote, 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. And the indictment now confirms this. The case arose then in the ordinary course of intelligence and law enforcement business and not as a targeted inquiry aimed at Bolton.

We also know that career non-political DOJ prosecutors at one point sought more time to review the evidence against Bolton and now are on board. with a prosecution. Again, note the contrast to the Comey and James indictments, which prompted a string of resignations by and terminations of dissenting prosecutorial professionals who saw no good faith basis to indict.

And prosecutors are hardly alone in concluding that substantial evidence exists to establish that Bolton potentially committed a crime. Before the Justice Department executed search warrants at his Maryland home and Washington, D.C. office in August, Prosecutors had to obtain authorization from two federal judges, one in each jurisdiction. We know as a matter of law that those judges concluded that prosecutors established at least probable cause that a crime had been committed.

and that the searches would likely uncover evidence of that crime. And we know that a grand jury... heard the evidence and found probable cause to issue the indictment. The probable cause standard is, of course, lower than the beyond a reasonable doubt burden that prosecutors must ultimately satisfy at trial to establish guilt.

But it's not nothing either. I can attest from experience that while grand juries, yes, they can be pushovers, judges do scrutinize search warrant applications fairly closely, especially if the target is a high-profile former public official.

Nor can Bolton claim differential treatment, given other semi-recent cases involving potential mishandling of classified information. After Hillary Clinton used a private email server as secretary of state, she became the subject of a prolonged criminal investigation that culminated with a 2016 election eve public announcement by the FBI director, the aforementioned Comey, as history remembers. that she had been, quote, extremely careless.

but would not be indicted. When the public learned that Joe Biden kept classified documents at his private home and office, the Justice Department under Biden himself appointed a special counsel, Robert Herr, who investigated for over a year and concluded in early 2024. that Biden had, quote, willfully retained and disclosed classified materials, but on balance should not be charged. And when Trump took classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, he got indicted.

by DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith. That case could have landed Trump in prison had he not won the 2024 election. Bolton's conduct, if proved, is more serious than all of those recent examples. There's no question Trump despises Bolton and vice versa. And Trump plainly has been giddy at the prospect of Bolton's indictment.

But the Bolton case appears to differ in kind from the recent prosecutions of Comey and James. This one relates to far more serious conduct, and it arose under less dubious circumstances. Ultimately, this is a problem that Trump has created. with his payback spree. It's increasingly hard to tell the bogus cases against his political antagonists from the valid ones. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed.

Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. A network of 130 million of them, in fact. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and...

See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply.