Trump Crosses John Bolton Off His Enemies Revenge List
Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
October 16, 2025

I probably shouldn't be flippant about this, but John Bolton has been indicted and it's one of Trump's fondest wishes. I'm sure he's upstairs in the White House celebrating even as I write.

However, the charges are serious ones. Marcy Wheeler explains:

The John Bolton indictment is a substantive document. If the claims about classification levels stand up, it is as substantive as the indictment against Trump (though with less sensitive documents and none of the obstruction).

For each of 8 charged documents (each was charged twice, once for transmission and once for retention) it describes Bolton sending the information to one of his family members via an AOL account that got hacked by Iran, then keeping it such that it was found when the FBI searched his house earlier this year.

The difference here is that Trump had boxes and boxes out in plain view at Mar-a-Lago. Who knows who he shared them with, since he didn't have anything digitized?

If these charges are true, Bolton has a real problem and he should be prosecuted and Trump gets to claim a scalp. But then, Pete Hegseth should also be prosecuted instead of being allowed to run rampant over the defense department.

Read the full indictment here.

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