If you’ve been watching the leftist media cover the recent indictments of James Comey, Letitia James and John Bolton, you have probably figured out for yourself that their main concern is not their guilt or innocence, but rather why they were “targeted” in the first place. Of course they usually don’t come out and say that, but on Thursday, CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein did just that on The Arena with Kasie Hunt.
Hunt’s panel was discussing the impending indictment of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, which would come down soon after. It had already been reported that the indictment would revolve around Bolton’s handling of classified documents. After hearing both former Trump attorney Bill Brennan and Scott Jennings discuss the fact that the Bolton case differs from Comey and James, in that the investigation has been going on for years, dating back to the Biden administration, it was Brownstein’s turn.
BROWNSTEIN: First of all, I mean, I think, focusing on the merits of this case really you have to willfully miss the forest for the trees. Because what we are watching is unprecedented.
I mean, the president was standing up in public expressing thoughts to the Justice Department that Richard Nixon only mused about in his darkest hours in the White House. You can listen to the White House tapes. You can bring in our colleague John Dean. He will tell you that Nixon expressed similar thoughts in private, usually after a few, you know, bourbons or something, but that they were ignored by the Justice Department. He told the IRS to investigate political enemies, and the IRS commissioner — [Treasury Secretary] George Shultz told the IRS commissioner put, put, put the enemies list in a safe and don’t take it out.
And now we are seeing Trump openly make demands that that that is, you know, unquestionably weaponizing the Justice Department, whatever the merits of the individual case, the fact that these people are the ones that are being targeted tells you something.
“Whatever the merits,” it’s all scandalous behavior by the Trump team. Democrats never weaponized the Justice Department, that’s “unprecedented.” All of this is dreadful Democrat spin.
After demeaning the potential criminal aspects of criminal cases, he then heard from both Scott Jennings and Bill Brennan. Jennings weighed in: “I just think that the merits of the — you said we shouldn’t focus on the merits of these cases, the merits of the cases are all that matter inside of a grand jury. They — grand jurors look at evidence, the merits of each individual case must be examined. This one especially (Bolton), I mean, if it goes back, as long as we think.”
Brennan added:
The issue with Ambassador Bolton is whether or not a high government official who comes out of the national security, you know, column, it’s not like he was running a EPA who has made public statements that if you do something like this, you should be in an orange jumpsuit. If in fact, he did these things, it’s a problem…
You can’t blame President Trump for this one because the U.S. Attorney supervising it, I believe, is a President Biden appointee. And I think the line prosecutor, I think it’s Sullivan, I’m not sure, is a seasoned professional in the national security unit. So, I mean, this is a long-term fight, four or five-year investigation that spans several administrations. And this is one particular investigation you can’t pin on Donald Trump’s enemies list, so to speak.
Under Biden, Trump was indicted four times, twice on state charges and twice on federal charges — not to mention many of his aides and attorneys. Let’s not count the more than 5,000 FBI agents that were investigating the January 6 riot. Biden was still considered too nice!
In 2022, Brownstein lamented that Biden just wasn’t weaponizing anything enough: “I think the risk he faces is a growing sense that he is a man out of time, as I wrote. That while he was the right candidate to beat Trump, he may be the wrong leader to combat Trumpism.”
