On Friday, F.B.I. agents searched the home and office of President Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, to determine whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information. Unauthorized possession and disclosure of national defense information is indeed a crime, and anyone who engages in such acts should be prosecuted.
But the very fact that the public can’t be sure whether this is, in fact, a legitimate investigation highlights the current crisis of trust in federal law enforcement, a crisis that has been exacerbated by the words and actions of Mr. Trump and members of his administration. The F.B.I.’s history shows that public trust is easily lost and difficult to rebuild — a lesson that we may have to (re)learn.
There are reasons to believe that the investigation into Mr. Bolton is justified. According to the F.B.I., the search it executed was court-authorized. That means an F.B.I. agent would have had to submit an affidavit, under oath, that there was probable cause to believe there was evidence of a crime in the specific places to be searched. And given that two locations were searched (in two jurisdictions), the Justice Department would most likely have needed to meet this standard for both places — which most likely means it had to persuade two different magistrate judges that it met the probable cause standard.
These judicial checks, by a separate and impartial branch, should ordinarily create a presumption of regularity that the rule of law is being followed.
But these are not regular times. It’s no secret that President Trump is “not a fan” of Mr. Bolton, as he reminded the country on Friday. In fact, the president has been at odds with Mr. Bolton since his first term. (Mr. Bolton left the administration in 2019 — the president claimed he fired him; Mr. Bolton said he resigned.)
In 2020, Mr. Trump’s Justice Department opened an investigation into Mr. Bolton to find out whether he unlawfully disclosed classified information in his book, “The Room Where It Happened.” During the years Mr. Trump was out of office, Kash Patel, now head of the F.B.I., also included Mr. Bolton on a list of 60 so-called deep-state names in the appendix of his book, “Government Gangsters.”
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post Bolton, Trump and a Crisis of Trust in Federal Law Enforcement appeared first on New York Times.
