Transcription
You're watching the Legal Breakdown. Glenn, we have some serious breaking news here, and that is that there was apparently a raid conducted on the home of Trump opponent John Bolton. That's his former national security adviser. Can you give uh any information here that you have?
Yeah, what we know at this moment, Brian, is that it looks like the FBI has executed a search warrant on John Bolton's home in Maryland. There has been some reporting by the New York Times that they may also be involved in a search of his offices, which I will tell our viewers is typical. If we're searching somebody's home for, you know, materials, for papers, for, in this instance, classified information, we will typically also obtain a search warrant for that person's office.
Um, of course there's nothing typical about what happens in the Trump administration when it comes to law enforcement because it seems like Donald Trump's every move and every move he is virtually directing his FBI and his DOJ to take is all about revenge. And why do I say that? Because, you know, as we know, Donald Trump has John Bolton uh as one of the marquee members on his enemies list. You know, he has talked about him a great deal. And Brian, um, here is what Donald Trump said about John Bolton just a little over a week ago. He said, "Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin, constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that even though the meeting is on American soil, Putin has already won." What's that all about? You know what a presidential statement that is. But what it makes clear is that John Bolton is sort of a de facto member of Donald Trump's enemies list.
But it gets worse. You know, the FBI is headed up by a Trump flunky Cash Patel. Cash Patel wrote a book and he published what he called the deep state list, but what I think the Washington Post directly and expressly, more accurately, called an enemy's list. And guess who's on that enemy's list of the now director of the FBI, John Bolton. So Brian, it remains to be seen whether one, this was a legitimate search warrant, and we can talk about that in a few minutes. Um, two, whether it turns up any evidence of crime like classified documents that Bolton may be unlawfully retaining, which is a federal crime, or three, is this just really more of Donald Trump attempting to take revenge on his enemies and misusing um the the law enforcement forces of the federal government to accomplish that end.
Clint, I'm going to throw a clip of Trump right here on the screen. President, um, Have you been briefed on the FBI raid of John Bolton? No, I don't know about it. I saw it on television this morning. I'm not a fan of John Bolton. He's a a real sort of a low life.
So, is there anything that we can take from that clip that might either assist John Bolton, hurt Donald Trump in terms of prosecution moving forward? I mean, he gives like he gives an answer here about him not knowing about this that is about as believable as, you know, a a a four-year-old whose entire face is covered in chocolate that has no idea where the cookie went. So, is there anything that you can glean from this video, from this footage that can have some impact on the prospect of prosecution?
Yeah, Brian, a couple of things. First of all, the first thing I thought of when I saw that clip was I remember when Donald Trump said, "I don't know anything about my lawyer, Michael Cohen, paying off Stormmy Daniels." Guess what? Turns out he did. Um, so this is more of the same from Donald Trump. But to answer your question directly, might this help John Bolton? This is evidentiary mana from heaven for John Bolton for at least two reasons. one, in the somewhat unlikely event that John Bolton is criminally charged, prosecuted, tried for some crime in the event some classified materials uh turn up in conjunction with this search warrant. Um the one of the first things John Bolton's lawyers will do is demand all evidence, all discovery pertaining to any communications between Donald Trump and anybody in the DOJ or the FBI before the execution of this search warrant um to see whether Donald Trump just lied to the American people about I didn't know anything about Cash Patel going after my announced enemy that I have been wanting to get for some time now. It doesn't pass the laugh test and it will it will hurt any prosecution that DOJ dains to bring against John Bolton.
The second way it will concretely help John Bolton in the event he is indicted and tried. He's going to have a beautiful vindictive prosecution claim. Why? Well, the law says that a prosecution cannot be based on personal animus. And it kind of feels like this one might be in the event John Bolton is prosecuted. That's just part of the test for vindictive prosecution. But Bolton will literally introduce into evidence in open court a public hearing at a motion to uh dismiss the case based on vindictive prosecution. every negative thing Donald Trump has ever said or posted, tweeted about John Bolton and anything Cash Patel ever said or posted about John Bolton. What did Cash Patel post today on X? He said FBI agents on mission, which you know these guys are like involved in cosplay, right? Pretending to be legitimate law enforcement agents and officers. No FBI director would ever post anything like that while the execution of a search warrant is underway, is in progress. So John Bolton will have a powerful vindictive prosecution claim in the event Pam Bondi can find a DOJ prosecutor um unethical enough to go into court and try to support this if it is really a product of revenge and not a product of hard reliable evidence that a judge had to assess before issuing a search warrant.
We can talk more about the ins and outs of that process if you like. Well, that that's what I wanted to dig into here because it's not like this can just happen solely with approval from Pam Bondi, Cash Battel, and Dan Bonino. Like, a judge did need to come forward and validate um some some concern that they had when they brought it to a judge to be able to get this warrant. And so, does that lend some credence to the DOJ's uh um prosecution or or investigation against John Bolton?
Yes, if the information provided to the judge and the way we provide information to a judge when we are seeking a search warrant or an arrest warrant is an FBI agent in this case or it could be an MPD officer, DEA, ATF, whatever agency is running the investigation will write down will complete an affidavit and put in there all of the evidence the agent believes um supports a probable cause determination. What does that mean? It means that the evidence must satisfy the evidentiary hurdle of probable cause to believe one a crime has been committed and two evidence of that crime will be in a particular location. So if the evidence to end, by the way, the FBI agent has to swear to it under the penalties of perjury. And if caught lying in an affidavit, you know, fudging the truth to try to make sure the s the judge signs off on the search warrant, then that FB FBI agent should be prosecuted for it. So we will wait to see when the affidavit in support of this search warrant gets unsealed. we'll be able to assess for ourselves what the evidence is that, you know, there was there was evidence of criminality in John Bolton's home and in John Bolton's office.
Um, but let me add this, Brian. You know, it is not unusual for the federal government in both uh Republican and Democrat administrations to go after um government officials, sometimes high government officials who unlawfully have classified information in their possession. Right. We we saw um a prior administration go after General David Petraeus for some classified information that led to criminal charge. I believe it's one to which he pleaded guilty. So this and of course there was some classified information in President's Biden's home uh from the time he was vice president. There was obviously a ton of classified information seized pursuant to a search warrant down at Mara Lago. that has a very different flavor from everything else we're discussing because that was Donald Trump just packaging up steel stealing in real terms a whole bunch of classified information that it feels like he might have wanted to leverage for whatever personal benefit he could receive. That's certainly the inference you can draw from that. So this is not unusual. It's not unprecedented. But when it is preceded by the president of the United States, you know, making clear that John Bolton is an avowed enemy and the FBI director making clear that John Bolton is on his enemy's list, his deep state list, this thing is unlike any other case involving high government officials, you know, being unlawfully in possession of classified materials.
Can I have your general reaction to the fact that if we're looking at classified materials, the irony of the person bringing this prosecution against John Bolton being Donald Trump who himself of course stole thousands of documents um and uh and of course, you know, had his uh had his lap dog in in the uh Florida District Court uh make it all go away. That was alien cannon. just your general reaction to the fact that this is the hill that the Trump administration is dying on prosecuting John Bolton for for the thing that Trump himself was found to have done.
Yeah, it feels like the death of irony and hypocrisy here. Now, let me say this, Brian. If the FBI found, you know, a dozen boxes of highly classified materials, government secrets, war plans against other countries in John Bolton's bathroom, then I will say, hey, looks like maybe there's some parody between what Donald Trump stole and kept in his bathroom and his ballroom down at Mara Lago and employed others to join his conspiracy to try to hide those things when FBI and DOJ K McCallen Okay. Well, then maybe there's some parody. But you're exactly right. It's irony. It's hypocrisy. And I am really looking forward to see one, what is in the affidavit in support of this search warrant? And two, did this search even turn up any evidence of crime?
Well, Glenn, last question here. When will we know whether the the search warrant did turn up anything that they were actually looking for?
Yeah, it's a tricky question, Brian. You know, ordinarily when somebody is arrested and presented in court for their first hearing, that is when these kind of things will be unsealed. Uh an arrest warrant, a search warrant, an indictment. Those are two separate ways to bring somebody into the criminal justice system. One is by an arrest warrant issued by a judge. The other is an indictment handed down by the grand jury. And search warrants. So all of those things tend to get unsealed at the time the defendant is presented in court for the first time in the case. However, if John Bolton is not indicted, is not presented in court, it may be a very long time and we actually may never see that affidavit in support of the search warrant unsealed. So that is a completely open question. the timing of when we may learn what's in this affidavit and whether any evidence of crime was actually seized from Bolton's home.
All right. Well, obviously more to come on this story in particular. For those who are watching, if you'd like to follow along and support our work, it's completely free. Please subscribe to our channels. I'm going to put the links to both of our channels right here on the screen. Again, it's a great way to support our work and independent media. I'm Brian Teller Cohen and I'm Glenn Kersner. You're watching the Legal Breakdown.