August 27, 2025

"The investigation into President Trump’s former national security adviser, John R. Bolton, began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration..."

"... when U.S. intelligence officials collected information that appeared to show that he had mishandled classified information, according to people familiar with the inquiry. 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. 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...."

From "John Bolton Inquiry Eyes Emails Obtained by Foreign Government/It is not clear what country intercepted Mr. Bolton’s private emails, but the investigation into President Trump’s former national security adviser picked up momentum under the Biden administration" (NYT).

44 comments:

Peachy said...

The Media/corrupt left -created the BS Mar-A-lago Raid.

A new book out by Christina Bobbs , describes the details.

"Defiant - Inside the Mar a Lago Raid and the Left’s Ongoing Lawfare"

narciso said...

rest assured those bylines know less than nothing of the details,

Leland said...

The disclosures suggest that a long-running investigation into Mr. Bolton’s activities changed over time
likely because
Mr. Bolton’s activities changed over time and he began to criticize Trump.

Lance said...

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

An anonymous source is leaking confidential information in order to attack Bolton for anonymously leaking confidential information.

Achilles said...

Well who woulda thunk it. All those people who said this is just petty Trump getting revenge against people he doesn't like were wrong and look really fucking stupid.

I am so shocked and surprised by this.

gilbar said...

remember!
NO ONE is Above the LAW!
except for Democrat Presidents..
except for Democrat DAs..
except for Democrat Fed bosses..
except for deep state neo war hawks..

but, except for THEM;
if you have classified docs, or shady mortgages..
you'll be GOING TO JAIL!

narciso said...

ouroboros, snake eating it's tail,

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Get Trump and his little dog, too.

bagoh20 said...

Bolton should have made it clear that he's a Democrat now rather than just acting like one on TV. You need the vaccine. You can't just pretend you're immune.

Immanuel Rant said...

Trump is so evil he managed to have Biden's admin start his revenge investigation for cover, even before he had reason to. Diabolical. It's the only scenario that fits the facts.

narciso said...

wonder if pinchuk is on the receiving line of that information,

Jamie said...

Mark Levin, whose voice and speaking style I deplore but who sometimes-to-often has interesting insights, ran through the timeline the other day.

1. Bolton decides to publish tell-all book.
2. Bolton writes book, wanting to publish before 2020 election for maximum money and impact. But because of his position and its content, it has to be cleared first to ensure he's not revealing sensitive or classified information.
3. The agency doing the clearing gets through about 2/3 of the book before Bolton gets impatient and claims they're slow-walking it to keep it from coming out before the election.
4. Bolton publishes the book, 1/3 unvetted.
5. Trump administration *[opens an investigation, empanels a grand jury, and] seeks an injunction to keep the book from being published before clearing, but...
6. ... the judge notes that it's too late, the horse is out of the barn. So no injunction. BUT he notes that Bolton, through his action publishing the book early and with the content the judge reads in it, has exposed his nation to harm and himself to civil and possibly criminal prosecution.
7. The election happens.
8. The Biden administration comes in, quashes the investigation, and sends the grand jury home.

* These 2 things may have happened after the judge's ruling - I can't remember for certain.

narciso said...

royce lamberth, is that proverbial fish on a bicycle,

greg kelley reminded us, bolton had that notepad with the 5,000 troops headed for Colombia in 2018

Jaq said...

"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"

Funny how amorphous and unsubstantiated "questions" that have mostly been raised, without evidence, by Trump's enemies gets equal billing with the actual evidence in the case, which supports Trump.

Jaq said...

I can't really abide Mark Levin, he is one of the reasons the Fox News hasn't appeared my TV screen in several years, but based on your post, that has the ring of truth, and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

wild chicken said...

A "more complex chain of events," eh? Almost like Trump knows what he's doing.

Jaq said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jupiter said...

So it was actually just more of the favorable treatment given to Clinton and Comey when they blatantly broke the national security laws.

Jamie said...

A "more complex chain of events," eh? Almost like Trump knows what he's doing.

At the very least, almost like he learned from his first term that he was going to get NONE of the leeway that any other president* gets.

* Or at least the Democrat ones.

Birches said...

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

FullMoon said...

Interesting.
Anonymous sources, and people" familiar with his thinking" on our side are more reliable and honest than the lying left.
Tracing use of anonymous source

Iman said...

Bolton can run, but he can’t hide…

https://x.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1958939098359456063

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Awkwaaard!

Eva Marie said...

Thx Peachy, bought the book through the Althouse portal.
Thx Jamie for the list. Clears things up.

JIM said...

What Hillary Clinton did with classified material was far more egregious than what Bolton is alleged to have done.
It's quite a stretch to claim Trump is getting retribution against his enemies when he's following through a prior investigation initiated by the Biden DOJ, but not for Democrat shills like the NYT.

Jamie said...

I've seen allusions to Bolton's having sent classified material to his wife and daughter - presumably the "people close to him" from the article. But that detail wasn't part of what Levin nasally listed off. He limited himself to Bolton's misdeeds in publishing classified material for the whole world to read - not the mishandling crime that may not have made it into the book but apparently did make it into the hands of an "adversarial" nation.

In short - hey TDS sufferers: there's a lot of there there, no matter what you've blinkered yourselves into believing. At any point, far short of believing that Trump really does mean what he says when he says he wants America to be a great country, will you be able to believe that any act of his is even neutrally motivated?

Skeptical Voter said...

Heck if the investigation of The Stache was good enough for Joe Biden and that weasel Merrick Garland, it's got to be good enough for The Donald and Pam Bondi.

Yancey Ward said...

Sounds like the NYTimes is warning their political allies that going to the mat for John Bolton is a mistake.

Yancey Ward said...

Of course, this being the NYTimes, the entire story could have been fabricated.

Earnest Prole said...

So Biden and Trump are lawfare co-conspirators against Bolton?

tommyesq said...

Mark Levin, whose voice and speaking style I deplore

He always reminded me of the Martians' "Ack Ack!" from "Mars Attacks," although he often makes good points.

Jupiter said...

I am still remembering .... that Comey went on national television to explain to us, that Hillary Clinton was not going to be prosecuted for evident and egregious violations of laws relating to classified material, because he -- HE! -- had determined that she lacked intent to commit the crimes she had committed. Despite the fact that a) the statutes she violated made no mention of "intent", and b) it was not his business to decide whether she should be prosecuted. Of course, it was actually the job of Loretta Lynch, a stumpy female Fatigro. Wherefore, we may take it as given that every action she took, was made in complete negligence, and, indeed, quite probably, complete ignorance, of all relevant laws.
Lock her up! Lock the criminal ratched up!

gadfly said...

Here is confirmation that Durham chased Russian disinformation for two more years after concluding the underlying pretext for his investigation was fabricated; such assertions border on pathology.

On May 20, 2022 — a year after John Durham had obtained evidence showing that the draft SVR [Russian Intelligence] report that he always claimed was the basis of his investigation was based on “composite” emails, and as such, proof that the SVR was framing Hillary Clinton — his lead prosecutor, Andrew DeFilippis, openly defied a judge’s order. DeFilippis instructed Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager, Robby Mook, to read a quote from Jake Sullivan about the Alfa Bank anomalies, saying, “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists.”

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Why, if true, this is quite a change in reporting for the Old Gray Lady. What “adversarial country” could it be?

Saint Croix said...

The word from the party has arrived...

"It's okay to assault and invade any former government officials, as long as they are Republicans."

Saint Croix said...

I remain very suspicious of the whole classification system, and I suspect that people in both parties use it to suppress information that makes them look bad.

There's nothing actually wrong with John Bolton trying to write a book to influence the 2020 election. But there is something very wrong with a government that tries to keep a book off the market.

The argument, as I understand it, is that John Bolton's book has exposed classified secrets and made the USA a weaker place? Oh, fuck off with that. The book is fucking published. Cite the part that was classified and you didn't want revealed. Is it still a fucking secret?

I again call bullshit on this raid. It's an exercise in police power, not law.

Saint Croix said...

I wonder what the NYT would have done if Bolton had given them the material to publish?

"My secret source is sacred and I cannot reveal his name."

Lazarus said...

Not being able to take home souvenirs and trophies would take a lot of the fun out of government service.

I'd suppose that just as every higher-up in government has a "glory wall" of pictures of themselves with political and government notables, they also all have a couple of boxes in the basement or garage.

If you are Bolton or Comey or Brennan or Clapper, it must rankle a bit that presidents get to build massive library/museums with their takings, while your stuff is just moldering in the attic or a storage unit.

Jim Howard said...

One thing I haven’t seen I guess because most reporters are extremely ignorant about well everything. Did Bolton have his book cleared by the department of defense prior to his publication? Anyone who has significant access to classified information by law, I believe, has to have significant written worse, cleared by one of the major agencies before that book can go to the public. Without the knowledge of the review status of any of Bolton‘s book we do not know enough facts and circumstances to make any kind of judgment

Leland said...

Did Bolton have his book cleared by the department of defense prior to his publication?

No. The NSC, not DOD, reviewed the book because the information wasn't defense related. They blocked publication of the book. This resulted in a court case and the Judge granted approval to publish the book. This changed the situation, now Bolton had released classified information not approved for release (the judge might be able to allow release, but that doesn't explain how he had the information and mishandled it prior to publication), so that triggered the first investigation into Bolton in 2020 that the Biden Administration shutdown a year later.

gadfly said...

‘Clinton Plan’ Emails Were Likely Made by Russian Spies, Declassified Report Shows

The information, a 29-page annex to the special counsel’s 2023 report, reveals that a foundational document for that theory was most likely stitched together by Russian spies. The document is a purported email from July 27, 2016, that said Mrs. Clinton had approved a campaign proposal to tie Mr. Trump to Russia to distract from the scandal over her use of a private email server.

The release of the annex adds new details to the public’s understanding of a complex trove of 2016 Russian intelligence reports analyzing purported emails that Russian hackers stole from Americans. It also shows how the special counsel, John H. Durham, went to great lengths to try to prove that several of the emails were real, only to ultimately conclude otherwise.

Deep State Reformer said...

Sore losers can eat shit. The law fare geni is out of the bottle now. If you leak docs to people for fun, profit, political advantage, or whatever you're now rolling the dice nobody is going to nark you out too at some point. WGCA journos, pundits, bureaucrats, middlemen whoever; you're ALL fair game now, and so is your 401k, pension, investments, savings, and home equity.

Post a Comment

Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.