WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton became the third high-profile Trump critic to be criminally charged on Oct. 16, after the president publicly attacked him repeatedly. All three maintain their innocence and plan to contest the charges.
The day before, Trump rattled off other names of people to be “looked into," as his Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel stood beside him at a White House news conference, smiling.
"I hope they're looking at all of these people,” Trump said of former Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, former Justice Department senior prosecutor Andrew Weissmann and California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. “And I'm allowed to find out. I'm allowed, you know, I’m in theory chief law enforcement officer.”
This presidential interference represents a major breach in the once-firm firewall between the White House and the Justice Department.
Former President Bill Clinton created a scandal merely by having a mundane conversation with Loretta Lynch − President Barack Obama's attorney general − at a Phoenix airport in 2016, when DOJ was investigating Clinton’s wife Hillary for her use of a private email server while secretary of state.
