What Bolton is alleged to have done
Query of the day: is it a revenge prosecution when the person indicted really does seem to be guilty of something that’s not utterly minor and meaningless?
For extra credit: If any prosecution of someone who is or was your enemy is automatically defined as revenge lawfare and prohibited, then wouldn’t these people be getting off scot-free for their previous abuse of power? Wouldn’t it be a get-out-of-jail-free card to have been the enemy of or the persecutor/prosecutor of a person who later comes to power? Wouldn’t it mean there would be no consequences for bad actors who try to engineer a lawfare coup on someone they consider an enemy, or break the law (such as by leaking classified information), because after that it’s hands-off those people if the power balance changes and goes against them?
Let’s just say that if even half of this is true, the indictment of Bolton really doesn’t seem to me to be a revenge prosecution. Let’s see:
John Bolton launched a plan to document and transmit classified information before he even started his job as President Trump’s national security advisor, according to the federal indictment against him. …
Two weeks later, he made his first transmission using the encrypted messaging app to two people, a 25-page document “which described information” that Bolton learned in his first few days on the job, the indictment says. The indictment doesn’t identify those people, but the New York Times reports they were his wife and daughter.
For the next 17 months, Bolton regularly sent “diary-like” entries to them about what he saw and heard that included classified information.
So it was a plan from the very start to write a memoir. In connection with that, he sent highly classified information to his family, often through insecure and vulnerable methods. He also took some of this information home with him. As far as I know, he had no power to declassify these things, unlike a president.
More:
Some examples of that classified information, which was also found in his home:
Revelations of a “liaison partner sharing sensitive information with the U.S. intelligence Community
A foreign adversary’s plans for a missile launch and the sources and methods used to gain the intelligence.
Covert action planned by the U.S. and a covert action that was conducted by the U.S. and another country.
A foreign country’s intelligence describing an adversary’s planned attack on a facility.
On advice of counsel, he didn’t use this information in his book. But using it in his book isn’t what he’s been charged with.
You can also find Bolton opining on the classified information violations of others in a video at this link. I can’t seem to find a way to embed it, so you’ll have to watch it there. Needless to say, he thinks their violations are very serious.
How often, in the BadOrangeMan camp, do we soon discover that an accusation is really a confession?
Bolton, Comey and now Brennan…
Hopefully they’re just getting started.
Unsecure, not insecure.
If this is true as stated, it’s due an eyeroll. Nothing prevented him from keeping a hard copy diary at home. And if he wants to talk to his wife about his work, he can do so over dinner.
Hillary Clinton did far worse, deliberately, and Trump 45 decided not to prosecute. This was a mistake, and they’re not going to make that kind of mistake this time around. As you say, Neo, if there are no consequences for illegal behavior, it will be repeated.
Art Deco, if he’d created a hard copy diary at home, rather than sending it electronically, it wouldn’t have been hacked with the subsequent disclosure of the information to hostile foreign forces.
Democrats no longer even attempt to act in good faith.
They just throw out any available arguments or accusations and pretend they have shown the utter perfidy of Republicans.
So of course any legal efforts of the DOJ against Democrats will be proof that it is Trump’s vindictive lawfare against his opponents. There is no way to argue with them about it.
As I see it, Republicans have no choice but to pursue these cases with all due force and let the wheels of justice grind however imperfectly.
I doubt Democrats will realize that they were wrong, but they may remember the pain.
I will say this for Bolton. Much information is over classified, and errors of storage, saving, and disposing of such information is violated or done in error quite a lot. That said, that’s not a defense, especially if classified info has been hacked by an adversary.
Storing info to use in a future book is probably done more than we know. Again, that doesn’t make it right. Hopefully, the trial will tell the whole tale.
Art Deco, if he’d created a hard copy diary at home, rather than sending it electronically, it wouldn’t have been hacked with the subsequent disclosure of the information to hostile foreign forces.
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Just to clarify, I don’t categorically object to quondam officials writing memoirs, though I think it’s something they generally should not do. I don’t categorically object to them keeping a diary at home, though I can see dangers in that and you could argue doing that is not according to spec. I don’t categorically object to them talking to their wives, but that’s not according to spec either. (Someone once said of the late Betsy North, “In the tradition of military wives, she seldom asked”). Now, if it were my doctor yapping about my medical issues, I might object. I’ll wager physicians and surgeons are storytellers, but I’d also wager they seldom if ever put a name on those stories. (Yes, I think the daughters of Donald Trump’s podiatrist were lying).
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If he had a home diary or spilled some beans to his wife, I think it would be reasonable for a federal prosecutor to put his case at the bottom of the priority pile, i.e. nulle prossed. If he’s transmitting documents electronically to his wife and daughter on day one, that’s something else. I’m rolling my eyes because I wager the guy is a maroon.
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As for Hellary and her minions, the spoilation of evidence merited prosecution if nothing else did.