FEDERAL AGENTS raided the home of President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday, provoking concerns from Democrats that one of Trump’s fiercest critics had been targeted for political purposes. The FBI confirmed a “court-authorized law enforcement activity” took place at Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Md., in the early morning. FBI agents could be seen bringing boxes into Bolton’s home for the search.
“NO ONE is above the law,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X, without naming Bolton.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said on X that “public corruption will not be tolerated.”
The search pertains to the alleged possession of classified documents, NewsNation reports.
Vice President Vance said in an interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker for “Meet the Press” that “classified documents are certainly part of it,” in addition to “a broad concern about” about Bolton that investigators are “going to look into.”
“If there’s no crime here, we’re not going to prosecute it. If there is a crime here, of course, Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court,” Vance added. “That’s how it should be. But again, our focus here is on, did he break the law? Did he commit crimes against the American people? If so, then he deserves to be prosecuted.”
Since serving in Trump’s first administration, Bolton has emerged as a high-profile critic of Trump in the media, routinely appearing on cable news outlets to hammer the president’s foreign policy, with a focus on Russia. Trump on Friday said he had no foreknowledge of the raid.
“They’ll brief me probably today sometime,” the president said.
“I tell [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi] and I tell the group I don’t want to know but just you have to do what you have to do,” he added. “I don’t want to know about it. It’s not necessary. I could know about it, I could be the one starting it, I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer, but I feel it’s better this way.”
Trump also unloaded on Bolton, calling him “very unpatriotic.”
Earlier this year, Trump had Bolton’s security clearance and Secret Service protection revoked. |
LONGSTANDING TENSIONS BETWEEN TRUMP AND BOLTON |
Bolton was investigated during Trump’s first term in office for revelations published in his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” which the administration said contained classified information. “He released massive amounts of classified, and confidential, but classified information,” Trump said in a 2020 interview with Fox News Channel’s John Roberts. “That’s illegal and you go to jail for that.”
“He shouldn’t have written a book, OK?” Trump said, adding, “Classified information — he should go to jail for that for many, many years. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and it’s up to the Justice Department, but I can tell you, they’re not happy.” The Biden administration later dropped the investigation.
Democrats are raising questions about the weaponization of law enforcement. “The timing of this is chilling,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said on CNN.
“In recent days, after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, Bolton has been publicly criticizing President Trump, saying that Putin is playing him and that he doesn‘t understand the risks of what he‘s doing in engaging with Putin, and Trump has been firing back,” Coons added. “So the timing of this search of Bolton‘s home is particularly chilling.”
Vance denied that politics was at play.
“No, not at all,” Vance told NBC. “And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy-nilly, like the Biden administration DOJ did. Prosecutions that later got thrown out in court.”
“We are investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law,” Vance added. “We’re going to be careful about that. We’re going to be deliberate about that, because we don’t think that we should throw people even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Patel and Bongino were fierce critics of the FBI when it raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents when former President Biden was in office. Trump was indicted on federal charges at the time, but the case was dismissed after the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
Biden was also found to have classified documents at his home, although special counsel Robert Hur declined to bring charges in part because he believed a jury would view Biden as a ”as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch, Filip Timotija and Brett Samuels have five things to know about the raid here. |
💡Perspectives:
• Jonathan Turley: Letitia James’ crusade against Trump was an abomination.
• The Hill: Trump is protecting everyone but Epstein’s survivors. |
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The first batch of Jeffrey Epstein files has been released by the Trump administration, which turned them over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Epstein’s former close associate Ghislaine Maxwell told the DOJ she “never witnessed” President Trump in an “inappropriate setting,” according to a transcript released Friday.
- Intel has agreed to give the U.S. government a 10 percent stake in the company, President Trump said Friday.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Trump he would remove some of the retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. to calm trade tensions, the president said.
Republican National Committee members elected Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters (R), an ally of Trump, to be the next chair of the national party.
The Trump administration is on track to shed about 300,000 employees by the end of the year, following layoffs and buyouts that were prompted by Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce.
A federal judge ruled Alina Habba, a former personal lawyer for the president, has been unlawfully serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor. Habba blasted Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) after the ruling, saying he could have intervened on procedural grounds.
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Fed’s Powell signals rate cut
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested Friday that the central bank could cut interest rates next month.
“With policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” Powell said at the Fed’s annual summit in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
The markets and economists reacted to Powell’s remarks as an indication he intends to cut rates, which Trump has been advocating for.
“Fed Chair Powell is indicating a 25bps September rate cut is **highly likely**. His Jackson Hole speech is about as clear cut as the Fed gets,” Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long posted on X. “But … he’s also signaling don’t bet on a bunch more rate cuts after that. Fed leaders will still be watching what happens with tariff-induced inflation.”
Powell said the central bank faces “significant uncertainty” as it attempts to navigate the impact of Trump’s economic policies.
“In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside, and risks to employment to the downside—a challenging situation,” Powell said. “When our goals are in tension like this, our framework calls for us to balance both sides of our dual mandate.” MEANWHILE… Trump said Friday said he would fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook over allegations she committed mortgage fraud if she does not resign.
“What she did was bad,” Trump told reporters during a stop at The People’s House exhibition near the White House. “So I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign.”
Cook has said she has no intention of stepping down from the Fed board after Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), accused her of lying on loan applications.
Pulte referred Cook to the Department of Justice for prosecution. |
Texas, California push ahead with redistricting
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Texas and California are moving ahead with their redistricting efforts, as other states consider redrawing their own maps.
The Texas state Senate convened this morning and could pass the new map later today, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) desk.
California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature formally approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) plan to redraw congressional lines on Thursday, teeing up a special election in November for voters to decide whether to enforce the new map.
Newsom’s redistricting campaign raised more than $6 million its first week. A new poll finds that nearly half of Californians support the redistricting move.
Democrats aim to pick up five additional House seats in California, the same number of seats Republicans believe they’ll pick up in Texas in the 2026 midterm elections. The reverberations from the new maps are already being felt in Washington.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said Thursday he will not seek reelection if the courts approve of the new congressional map. The new maps would require Doggett, 78, to go up against Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the 36-year old chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. ELSEWHERE…
The Democratic think tank Third Way released a new memo containing words and phrases they say Democrats should avoid as the party seeks to reconnect with ordinary Americans.
In a memo, Third Way said “Democrats and their allies use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.”
“The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace,” the memo states. “The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness. To please the few, we have alienated the many—especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant.”
Among the words Third Way says should be eliminated from political messaging: Privilege; environmental violence; microaggression; critical theory; existential threat; food insecurity; the unhoused; pregnant people; LGBTQIA+; Latinx; BIPOC; intersectionality and others. Read the full memo here.
MEANWHILE…
The White House unveiled its own list of 20 Smithsonian exhibits the Trump administration alleges are being used to frame historical events through “ideological” narratives instead of factual evidence.
These include an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Latino that portrays the U.S. as stolen land and an exhibit at the American History Museum’s “LGBTQ+ History” that focuses on a transgender athlete to laud the 50th anniversary of Title IX.
Also on Friday, the Education Department announced it found George Mason University in violation of Title VI due to “unlawful DEI policies.” |
Trump says Chicago is next for federal crackdown
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President Trump said Friday that Chicago is next on his list for a federal crime crackdown after he deployed National Guard troops to fight crime in Washington, D.C.
“Chicago’s a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we’ll straighten that one out probably next,” Trump said. “That will be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough.”
Trump also warned D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) that he’d seek to extend the federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department, accusing the local police of reporting “inaccurate” crime statistics.
“Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Washington D.C. will soon be great again!!!” The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the District’s crime data. Trump’s takeover of the MPD is valid for 30 days. After that, he’d need Congress to renew it.
Trump also said he planned to ask Congress for $2 billion to make improvements around Washington. The Pentagon said Friday that National Guard members deployed in D.C. will soon be armed. IMMIGRATION LATEST…
• A federal judge in Florida ordered that some of Alligator Alcatraz be shut down. The judge barred Florida from bringing in more migrants to the detention facility.
• The State Department says it will vet more than 55 million U.S. visa holders for deportable offenses, including overstays, criminal activity and engagement in any form of “terrorist activity.”
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the Trump administration will pause the issuance of worker visas for foreign truck drivers, arguing the growing number of international, commercial operators is putting the lives of Americans in danger.
• A new survey of the U.S. immigration population shows a drop of 1.5 million people since January. More immigrants are leaving the U.S. than are entering for the first time in decades. |
Moscow casts doubt on Putin-Zelensky meeting
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Moscow’s top diplomat says Russia is not ready to commit to a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News in an interview scheduled to air in full on Sunday. Lavrov said at a press conference earlier this week that U.S. and European efforts to secure Ukraine’s future safety are “hopeless.” He also questioned Zelensky’s “legitimacy” as president.
Reuters reports that Russia wants steep concessions from Ukraine as part of any peace deal, with Putin wanting to take the entire the Donbas region. Russia struck Ukraine with overnight missile attacks. Zelensky said Moscow is behaving “as if there were no efforts by the world to stop this war.” The European Union’s top diplomat said Friday that Putin is “laughing” at Trump’s efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump said Friday that Putin might attend the 2026 FIFA World Cup being co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, as he showed off a photograph in the Oval Office of the two leaders together. |
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