It’s hard to imagine that John Bolton, after years and multiple investigations, is illegally in possession of classified documents. If so, it still isn’t remotely like Trump’s being given multiple opportunities to return the docs and refusing, lying and concealing so he could show them to randos and impress people with how important he was. And Trump not only said he was not a fan of Bolton’s, whom he claimed he fired and Bolton claimed he quit Trump 1.0, but he stripped Bolton of his security clearance and detail, even though he was under threat, on Day 1.

Still, raids need search warrants, and search warrants need Magistrate Judges to sign off on them. And yet, Trump’s actions have sown the seeds of mistrust in anything that gets touched by his bloated yet grubby fingers.

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.

This was the issue presented to former New Jersey United States Attorney and Governor, and, more importantly, former Trump confidante, Chris Christie, by Jonathan Karl on ABC’s This Week. 

Mr. Christie said during an appearance on ABC News that the president “doesn’t care” about maintaining a separation between his office and criminal investigations.

This is about as tepid a phrasing as there could be. Trump “doesn’t care”? But there’s more.

Mr. Christie mentioned the president by name after he was asked by the journalist Jonathan Karl whether Vice President JD Vance, who has defended the criminal investigation into Mr. Bolton, is playing a role in it.

“Donald Trump sees himself as the person who gets to decide everything, and he doesn’t care about any separation,” Mr. Christie told Mr. Karl. “In fact, he absolutely rejects the idea that there should be separation between criminal investigations and the politically elected leader of the United States. This is much different than it’s ever been run before.”

Who would have guessed? Of course, it’s not as if Trump didn’t make this overwhelmingly clear when he ran for office in 2024.

“He told you he was going to do this, that he was going to have a Justice Department that acted as his personal legal representation, and that is what they’re doing,” Mr. Christie said.

And when he appointed Pam Bondi as AG and K$sh Patel as FBI Director, there was little doubt that they would serve him in any way possible, doing whatever it was that Trump wanted. After all, what’s the point of being president if you can’t use the mechanisms of government to take revenge upon your enemies.

And if there was any doubt about it, Trump couldn’t control his impulse to prove the point.

I just watched Sloppy Chris Christie be interviewed on a ratings challenged “News” Show, “This Week With George Slopadopolus,” on ABC Fake News (By the way, what the “hell” happened to Jonathan Karl’s hair? He looks absolutely terrible! It’s amazing what bad ratings, on a failed television show that was forced to pay me $16,000,000, can do to one’s appearance!). Can anyone believe anything that Sloppy Chris says? Do you remember the way he lied about the dangerous and deadly closure of the George Washington Bridge in order to stay out of prison, at the same time sacrificing people who worked for him, including a young mother, who spent years trying to fight off the vicious charges against her. Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts. For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again? NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

Sure, we’re well beyond the infantile name calling and the inability to focus that afflicts so many people of an advanced age. But Bridgegate was 2013, well beyond the statute of limitations and long ago investigated. But such details that would reduce Trump’s obviously retaliatory threat to yet another laughable bit of inanity are unlikely to matter much to the minions who will seize upon anything they believe will endear themselves to their lord and savior.

The message is clear. Do not speak ill of Trump, even if it’s about something as open and notorious as Trump’s using the FBI and Department of Justice as weapons against his enemies, no matter how many there are or how nonsensical the threat.

Did John Bolton illegally possess confidential documents? Beats me. But there is nothing that comes out of K$sh’s FBI or Bondi’s DoJ that isn’t tainted by the stench of Trump’s revenge against his one-time “best people” who no longer manufacture excuses for him. And no doubt the message isn’t lost on his current sycophants, like Bondi and K$sh, even though it seems highly unlikely that they would ever feel sufficient shame to turn against their patron that lifted them from insignificance to the top of the Trump trash heap.

But then, there was no mention of Epstein on This Week, so it wasn’t all bad.