The Bolton Case
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Mileage of course will vary but worth taking a look at this argument on the John Bolton indictments:
You should question whether these charges would be brought if Trump weren’t president. Officials in Joe Biden’s administration passed on the chance to do so. And Bolton has plenty of basis to argue that he is being singled out because he is one of Trump’s most voluble and persistent critics. (He pleaded not guilty in court this morning.) But political animus doesn’t make the government’s charges baseless. This indictment does not belong in the same category as the ones against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Those cases are so weak that a U.S. attorney resigned rather than present them to a grand jury, and career prosecutors told his replacement that the government would probably lose at trial.
People I spoke with who are knowledgeable about the Bolton case—including what he allegedly did while serving in the White House in Trump’s first term, and internal deliberations over whether to charge him with mishandling classified information—say that indicting the former adviser was not an easy call. But the case, several said, is “righteous.” Reading the charges, I’m inclined to agree that if its facts are accurate, the government has a strong argument. I’ve covered a lot of cases of mishandling classified information and documents. Some people who have faced charges like those Bolton does now are in prison.
This indictment tells a story about a seasoned diplomat and well-known conservative firebrand who, to the surprise of many at the time, went to work for one of the most unconventional presidents in recent memory. He intended to document the experience. The day before Bolton became national security adviser, prosecutors allege, a person identified as Individual 1 set up a group chat that would be used, as Bolton put it in a text, “For Diary in the future!!!” Bolton’s excessive use of exclamation points aside, this is not in and of itself a crime. But prosecutors allege that this group chat became a primary vehicle for Bolton to share more than 1,000 pages of material that they say contained classified information with two people the indictment calls Individual 1 and Individual 2, described as relatives. News reports have identified them, respectively, as Bolton’s wife and daughter. Both appear to have been working with Bolton to compile his notes and observations.
On the one hand we’re in a fight for America and we take whatever allies we can get, however unsavory. On the other hand… John Bolton is not the hill I’m inclined to die on. It will be interesting to see how the situation plays out.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)