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Written by Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions
The FBI’s early-morning raid on John Bolton’s Bethesda home on August 22 has reignited the debate over whether Donald Trump’s second administration is weaponizing law enforcement as part of his so-called war against the “Deep State.” The search reportedly targeting alleged mishandling of classified documents tied to Bolton’s 2020 memoir “The Room Where It Happened”, bears the hallmarks of an investigation that, notwithstanding its merits, was first pursued under Trump, dropped under Biden, and then, conveniently enough, resurrected under Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.
Bolton is of course no ordinary bureaucrat. A veteran of the George W. Bush administration, he was briefly Trump’s own National Security Adviser, only to become one of his most vocal critics after leaving office. He has repeatedly denounced Trump’s foreign policy as “incoherent” and devoid of strategy, most recently blasting the administration’s approach to Ukraine. Thus far, his criticisms have drawn sharp rebukes from Trump loyalists, but the FBI raid takes matters to another level altogether.
The operation, as a matter of fact, was overseen by Kash Patel, a staunch Trump ally who in his 2023 book referred to Bolton as part of the “Executive Branch Deep State”. In Patel’s narrative, figures like Bolton are not simply political opponents but entrenched saboteurs within Washington’s machinery of power. No wonder, then, that Bolton’s residence was targeted with such zeal some time between 6 and 7 am. One may recall that Patel has long framed himself as Trump’s sword-bearer against the bureaucracy, a role he now exercises with unprecedented institutional authority as FBI director.
The message is clear enough: by reviving a case dismissed years ago, the administration sends a blunt message to insiders: criticism will not be tolerated. Suffice to say, this is not just about a memoir — and it is not just about policing dissent from within the national security establishment itself either: it is in a way a counterattack.
Critics will point out this is not the first time Trump has blurred the lines between political feuds and law enforcement. In an earlier analysis, I described how the administration has politicized crime control by federalizing police deployments in Democrat-led cities under the guise of restoring order. Thereby, local security became another battlefield for Trump’s consolidation of presidential power. It goes beyond that though, and is also about redefining American federalism. Trump is not just going after dissidents: in a way, he is trying to remake the American republic.
The Bolton case fits neatly into such a pattern. It recalls Trump’s broader “Agenda 2025,” and its war against the “double government” (or the Deep State), which, as I argued elsewhere, is all about expanding executive (Presidential) authority — whether through promises to declassify sensitive files on JFK, Epstein, and even “UFOs” (for leverage), or through empowering loyalists like Patel to root out alleged enemies of the people.
Be as it may, supporters of the raid insist that “no one is above the law,” echoing Patel’s own triumphant post on X. Yet critics argue this is a textbook case of retaliation against a dissident insider. The Washington Post warned that the Bolton raid raises “serious concerns about political vengeance dressed as law enforcement”.
The New York Times, for its part, observed that the case “looks less like national security and more like a purge.” As a matter of fact, to some extent, there are already purges going on within the national security apparatus, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere.
In any case, Bolton himself has doubled down, using the raid as a platform to hammer Trump’s foreign policy. In recent remarks, he ridiculed what he called the administration’s supposed lack of coherent strategy on Ukraine, declaring that “chaos cannot substitute for grand strategy”. So much for the idea that intimidation might silence him.
In any event, if there is such a thing as a “Deep State”, Bolton criticism of the Ukrainian issue does give us an idea of what one of Trump’s main disagreements with the “double government” (or whatever one may call it) is. One may recall that one of the assassination attempts against this President came from a Ukraine recruiter (called Ryan Wesley Routh) with lots of intelligence connections.
Contradictory as Trump’s own connections to the “Deep State” may be (via his Big Tech links, for instance) what we are witnessing is thus not an isolated event but part of a long-standing battle. An underreported angle is how this case also reflects the transformation of America’s national security architecture.
By resurrecting dormant cases and embedding political agendas within the FBI’s highest levels, the Trump administration is fundamentally reshaping the relationship between executive power and independent oversight.
Bolton’s FBI raid is, at first glance, a legal matter about classified documents. But seen against the backdrop of Trump’s broader struggle with Washington institutions, it is clearly more than that. It is a performance of power, a signal to allies and adversaries alike that the president’s war against the so-called Deep State (or parts of it) is not just rhetorical but, to some degree, institutionalized.
From an American perspective, this does raise troubling questions about the future of US democracy and the weaponization of its justice system. Thus, while Bolton may have his own sins to answer for, the real story lies in the precedent being set. When national security investigations become indistinguishable from political purges, the very architecture of checks and balances begins to erode.
And if that is indeed the trajectory, then Bolton may not be the last high-profile target in Trump’s arm-wrestling with the bureaucratic state. One should also expect to see some blowback and Elon Musk’s allegations about the Epstein list might offer a clue on precisely what kind of intrigue could come up. Such is the picture of the American regime today: purges, blackmail, selectively leaked files, and intelligence agencies at war.
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unfortunately everything trumpstein does is completely undone by his casual disregard and encouragement of the gaza genocide and grovelling endlessly to the zionist inbred morons
🇷🇺=🤡 😆😆😆
maybe so, but they’re still winning in ukraine. cry harder
the scum of the russian government reeks of shit, their economy will be strangled and they will have to lick the chinese ass
much like you are forced to lick the ass of the criminal murderering scum of the ukroreich regime of thieves, and then you are forced to lift up the “aprons” to use your mouth on the nasty lucifer cult old men who tell the banderite nazis what to do eh ?
epstein’s obese orange friend is the deep state