Current aides to Donald Trump, as well as those seeking employment at the White House, were warned on Thursday that they may want to think twice about the horrific impact it can have on their futures.
Using the indictment of former Trump national security advisor John Bolton as a leaping-off point, the editors of the conservative Wall Street Journal lambasted the continuing efforts of the president and his Department of Justice to prosecute former advisors and warned it should be a red flag to stay out of the president’s orbit.
In Journal editors' op-ed late Thursday, they got right to the point in the first line by declaring, “Opposing Donald Trump is a perilous business, but working for him can be equally as dangerous. That’s one lesson from Thursday’s indictment of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton for mishandling classified documents.”
Taking Bolton’s side by writing, “The indictment makes much of the fact that the information Mr. Bolton is accused of mishandling didn’t appear in his book after his draft was reviewed by the White House. But the review process exists to safeguard national secrets, and Mr. Bolton subjected himself to it,” they added that the motivation for the targeted prosecution is no secret.
“There’s little doubt that the underlying motivation for this prosecution is retribution. The President has targeted Mr. Bolton at least since 2020 when Mr. Trump called for his prosecution after Mr. Bolton wrote his book,” the editors wrote.
According to the editors, the treatment of Bolton should alarm anyone in Trump’s employ.
“Mr. Trump recruited Mr. Bolton to work for him and cast him aside over policy disagreements. The lesson is that if you work for the President, he then sours on you and you criticize him, you are not safe,” they wrote before adding, “Mr. Bolton will get his day in court, and we look forward to his defense. In our experience he is a patriot who would do nothing to compromise national security. He never leaked classified information to us. If Mr. Bolton had praised Mr. Trump in his book, it’s safe to say he wouldn’t have been indicted.”
You can read more here