“How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 o’clock in the morning?” So said Roger Stone on X today as images of FBI investigators descended on the quaint Bethesda domicile of John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security advisor. Stone later captioned a side-by-side image of Bolton, who has since become a bitter critic of the President, and himself: “The man on the left had his home rated [sic] at 6 am because he did something wrong. The man on the right had his home raided at 6 am because he didn’t. Karma is bitch.”

Is the Bolton raid karma, revenge, justice, or a strange brew of all three? In the coming days, we will find out. But here’s what we know: Bolton has not been charged with a crime and is not under arrest. A New York Post report described the raid as part of “a high-profile national security probe involving classified documents,” extending well beyond John Bolton’s 2020 tell-all about his time in the Trump White House. After his dismissal, Bolton broke with the President, prompting the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether he had disclosed classified information in the book.

Trump never made good on his 2016 promise to jail Hillary Clinton. He did not weaponise the DOJ to prosecute her or use his investigative powers to pursue her. In the meantime, people in Trump’s own intelligence community continued to abuse their powers in an effort to topple him. He was the target of intense lawfare, some of which was clearly and intentionally working with thin gruel to prevent a second Trump administration. That pattern of double standards brings us to 2025.

“NO ONE is above the law”, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X shortly before this week’s raid began. In addition to Bolton, former Bureau director James Comey is under investigation by Trump’s DOJ along with former CIA director John Brennan. Asked by UnHerd at the White House last month whether former president Barack Obama’s actions were being referred to the DOJ for a criminal investigation, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard replied affirmatively.

It’s no surprise Stone invoked the 2019 raid on his own home, during which CNN cameras were suspiciously rolling. He was convicted on felony charges related to obstruction of Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion probe, and pardoned by the President before beginning a 40-month sentence. At the time, Trump and others decried “process-based charges” brought only against allies of the White House and not its enemies — including some of the very people now being investigated by Trump’s DOJ.

Allegations that Bolton mishandled classified information inevitably recall similar claims against Trump — which, in turn, evoke the controversy over Joe Biden’s handling of documents, and before that, Hillary Clinton’s private server. None of these cases are identical, but together they chart America’s drift toward banana republicanism, where the pursuit of political opponents is endlessly justified as the only cure for past pursuits. In such a cycle, tit-for-tat justice becomes both the cause and the excuse. The only way out, it seems, is through.

Should sensitive information have been stacked in the bathroom at Mar-A-Lago or stored on a homebrew server? Probably not. If the latter case is not prosecuted, should the former? Should either be prosecuted at all? These are deeply fraught questions which supply no easy answers, except that nobody has the moral high ground at this point. Bolton’s defenders don’t, and nor do Trump’s.

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Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington correspondent.

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