Former ambassador John Bolton raided (08-22-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. President Donald Trump is expected to make an announcement. It was scheduled for noon. I was about five minutes ago and announcement has not yet been made as far as I know. I am monitoring the c span which still has it as scheduled to do and I click on the live feed and it says the program has ended. So I'm not really clear as to what exactly. If I click play there and now it loads an ad Okay, so I'm not really sure what's going on, if he's running late or what. But anyway, when the when the President makes the announcement, I'll try to bring it to you live. I have no idea what it's about. I haven't seen anybody with the intel on what it is about. If I had to guess, I would guess has to do with the rating of John Bolton's home and his office. John Bolton is the former national security advisor to Donald Trump. His home was raided in Bethesda, Maryland this morning about seven am. The New York Posts Caitlin Dornboss Dornbow's dorn Buss. Anyway, she initially broke the story, saying federal agents went to Bolton's house in Bethesda, Maryland at seven am in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Cash Pattel. Per Fox News, agency officials were later spotted at his Washington, d C office removing boxes. Bolton was seen in the lobby there. Sources who spoke with The Post and other outlets say the searches are related to John Bolton's alleged possession of classified documents. Yes, now some of you may not be old enough to remember this, but there was a it was a it was like a panic, a social contagion that swept through Washington, d C. For about I don't know, like four or five days, where it seemed like everybody was turning back in all of the classified documents that they had inadvertently swiped. And this contagion occurred after the raid of Mara A Lago, Donald Trump's home down in Florida. Remember, they sent in some people on I think it was a magistrate's warrant or something like that, and they raided his house and they, you know, they flipped it over, They turned stuff over, They went through Malania's lingerie and stuff, and they they took a bunch of stuff out and they were gonna prosecute Donald Trump, who at that time, if I recall correctly, had not decided to run or had not announced he was running for president at that point. But they took a bunch of stuff out of the out of mar A Lago. Remember, they took a bunch of pictures of stuff and posted them on Twitter. And people were like, well, why are you showing us classified stuff on social media? But whatever, it doesn't matter. It's different, you know, when it's Donald Trump. And so then that prompted. Remember there was a documents found in the far more secure detached garage at Joe Biden's, one of Joe Biden's homes. It was like, you know, stuffed in a box next to his classic Is it a corvette I think it was, or maybe a Mustang I forget, but this classic car he had and which also you know, we know that Hunter Biden had access to that vehicle because he took pictures with like a bikini clad cousin in it. And anyway, and then all of a sudden we got like remember like Mike Pence came out and he said, oh I had some I turned him back in and like some other like people, all of a sudden it was like, oh, all of these people had classified documents, and it became sort of this meme joke online. You know, people were reporting them safe from having to you know, return classified documents, reporting themselves safe on Facebook. And so yeah, again this was a very very long time ago. A lot of people probably don't remember when all of this happened. But I would have thought that would have been the time if John Bolton had classified information that he had taken. I think that would have been a good time to return it because everybody was doing it, you know, like you could just kind of hide inside the pack, you know, if in fact he does have classified material or had I guess until this morning, if he in fact had classified information. The investigation came after President Donald Trump fought to quash the publication of Bolton's book. Oh well, wait a minute, and so that would indicate that the investigation began some time ago. Yeah, apparently, according to a senior US official who told the New York Post reporter Dornboss, the raid is related to a probe that was first launched years ago. But it didn't go anywhere, which is weird. Maybe they didn't have enough evidence or something, or maybe it was shut down by the Biden administration for some other reason, as the senior US official said to The New York Post that it was shut down for quote, political reasons. What would those political reasons be, Well, John Bolton writes a book, there are concerns about classified information that may have been referenced in the book or something, and they launch a probe and then it is shut down by the Biden administration. The investigation, by the way, began in twenty twenty, which was the same year Trump's first Justice Department launched a criminal inquiry into Bolton's alleged disclosure of national secrets in the book. The book was called The Room Where It Happened, and the investigation came after Trump tried to quash the publication of the book over its inclusion of national secrets, saying Bolton broke a non disclosure agreement signed as a condition of his employment. Bolton has reportedly not been arrested or charged with any crimes as of the article's publication. So hmm, what would be the political reasons for shutting down John Bolton's investigation? Could it be I'm just spitballing here. I don't know. I have not been contacted nor have I received any information from deep sources in the White House. I don't have any so I cannot hear from them. So I don't know, but I'm just spitballing. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Bolton was out there savaging Donald Trump after Trump fired him. Maybe maybe John Bolton was seen as an ally, or, to use a term that the Left is more comfortable using, an asset, yes, an asset for the Biden administration and its weaponized intelligence agencies. That you could have John Bolton going out there with the gravitas that is afforded to him as a Trump appointee of longtime Republican aide and staffer and ambassador and like all of these high ranking positions and such, and here he is going out there and attacking Trump doing all of the interviews on MSNBC now known as miss Now. So maybe he was seen as this is a benefit to have them out there. So we'll do you a solid and shut down the investigation and you can keep going out there doing your interviews attacking Donald Trump. Again. I don't know that to be the case, but I can make some guesses. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot Ground, dot News, slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Over at the Federalist dot com. This is a piece by Sean Fleetwood. No relation to the song that just played as the bump tune, well that I know of. I don't know there he could be anyway. Appearing on ms NBC in August of twenty twenty two to discuss the matter, Bolton expressed his belief that Trump didn't care about the classification system or appreciate the sensitivity of the information. He was talking about the Mara Lago raid in summer of twenty twenty two. He said he had no problem with the raid. And I've seen people it's it's so funny, like the people that defended the raid or said, oh, it's not a raid, don't call it a raid. Right, They were all in defense of the raid on Mara Lago in twenty twenty two, and those same people are now, you know, hitting the fainting couches over this raid on John Bolton's home. And we find out that there was an investigation into Bolton after he published his book in twenty twenty, going after Donald Trump, and there were there was belief obviously that Bolton had in his possession and had used classified information to help write his book, and they launched a probe, and then that got shut down when Joe Biden took office in twenty twenty one, right after the twenty twenty election, and at the time Biden is in office, now the book has been out, the probe has been shut down, either right before or right after the raid on mar A Lago, and you got Bolton out there propping up this belief that for the first time ever in a you might consider it to be a shattering of the norms that a current administration has raided the home of the prior administration a political opponent. And people like me were saying, guys, this is not a great precedent to be setting, particularly when it comes to this issue, because I know people were saying, he took all the documents, he took all this stuff, but they couldn't tell us what the documents were, and the leaks about what the documents were were coming from an intel agency or intelligence community that was riddled with never Trumpers and anti trumpers and people suffering from Trump de arrangement syndrome, the same people that told us Trump was a Russian asset. So I couldn't believe this stuff that's getting leaked through their normal media laundering cutouts. So what are we now to make of all of this? And Jack Smith launches his prosecution, all of that got shut down too, And here you have Bolton running around making the case all of this is legitimate. Yes, we shattered a norm, but Donald Trump broke the norm first because he's Donald Trump, and he would take stuff. He liked cool things things, said Bolton. He saw things, so he wanted to take them, and he was pretty much able to take them, and not just on classified information matters, on all kinds of things that crossed his desk. Some days he liked to eat a lot of French fries. Some days he took classified documents. He wanted them. Why did he want them? Because he could get them. I suspect that John Bolton may have had some sort of an arrangement with the Biden administration. Whether or not it's stated explicitly or not, it doesn't matter to me. I think there's an understanding that Bolton is doing some of the work that we like to see done going after Trump, bolstering our case, reinforcing the narrative, you know, trading in his credibility, in his political and cachet, in service to our narrative that Donald Trump needs to be thrown in prison, because that's what the Democrats were doing after Trump lost, after for j six, Donald Trump needs to go to jail. That's why they launched the raid. That's why they launched the case in New York. Well, the multiple cases in New York, right Egen Carrol trial. We get all of these things going after Trump, another impeachment, all of these other things. All of this stuff was all designed to destroy Donald Trump after he was out of office, to prevent him from ever running again. And the Left just kept whipping their mobs up year after year after year, culminating finally in multiple attempted assassinations of Trump. And for all of that work that they did, for all of the frenzy that they created, it ended up getting Donald Trump elected again. I've been very clear. In the twenty twenty four election, I voted for Trump for the first time. I did not vote for him the previous two. I did not vote for the Demoocrats either, but I did not vote for and I never voted for a major party candidate, a Republican or a Democrat for president ever in my life. The first one I've ever voted for was Donald Trump, and it wasn't a vote for him. It was my use of a protest vote, which I always used my presidential vote for. It's a protest against the party's nominees. That's the way I always did it before. I wanted people that were actually better candidates. I wanted people that were more fiscally restraining. I wanted people to reign in the executive branch, and I never got any of that. But I recognized it's my vote, I'm going to choose to use it as a protest for that race. And when Trump ran in twenty twenty four, and after seeing what the media had done to him, the lies they promulgated, and then the cover up of Joe Biden's sinility is cognitive decline, I used my vote for Trump as a protest vote again. Against the media, and now I'm going to say I used it also against the intelligence agencies. That's all I can do. I was my one vote, but that's why I voted for and I suspect there are a lot of Americans that did that too, after seeing what they put Trump through. In a post on Twitter, FBI director Cash Patel said no one is above the law. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino they also went to Twitter. Bondi said America's safety isn't negotiable. Justice will be pursued always. Bongino said public corruption will not be tolerated. Bolton served during two Republican administrations, first as ambassador to the UN during George W. Bush's term. Later, he was the National Security advisor to Trump for about a year and a half. They did not part ways amicably. Many do not with Trump, particularly in that first term. In twenty nineteen, claimed he fired Bolton, but Bolton claimed he offered to resign after a disagreement. Earlier this year, several days into the second Trump administration, the president canceled John Bolton's Secret Service detail, despite the fact that Bolton was the target target of an alleged murder for higher scheme by a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's from NBC News. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountain. Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions, with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. From the WBT text line, Joseph wants to know whether I think the FEDS rifled through Bolton's underwear drawer. I don't know. Apparently they're still there. They've been there for like five hours now, so not really sure. Kirk says there may be something there with respect to Bolton, but it smacks of retribution. Yeah, it does that. I don't know it very well. Could be politically motivated, although Trump said he was doing something this morning and somebody asked him about it, and he said he wasn't aware of it happening. He doesn't know anything about it. Maybe that's what the announcement that now has been pushed back to twelve thirty because they're still going through the house. Maybe they pushed it back for that. It was supposed to be a twelve o'clock announcement. It then got pushed to twelve thirty and we're still waiting to hear what the announcement is. And it might be completely unrelated right to the Bolton rate. But yeah, Kirk, I agree. I mean it could very well be some sort of you know, political retribution. Sure, I think though, let me hear. I just saw did to do do. Yeah, everybody just ought to calm down, whether you're pro Trump or anti Trump, and let the process work its way through. I think that's some that that is some sage advice, some good advice, and uh, I think we should all respect uh, John Bolton's wishes because that's a quote from John Bolton after the raid of mar Lago. So yeah, again with all things Donald Trump, what do I advise, Let's just wait a minute, Let's see what this is about. Let's see if there's more information. If Trump did not know anything about it, then it very well could be that they reopened the probe into John Bolton that was suspended or that was shut down under the Biden administration when Bolton was running around savaging Donald Trump, and the investigation was apparently reportedly again due to this is based off of an anonymous US official who told it to either The New York Post or Fox News that the probe was about John Bolton taking classified information to use for his book where he savaged Donald Trump. The book came out in twenty twenty. But you'll recall all of the classified information, all that stuff that Donald Trump took and then got his house rated like that happened after Bolton's book. So maybe this is related to it. Maybe it's not. I have no idea, so I'm willing to wait and see. Jeff says at the opening of the show, when you revealed that the story was about classified documents, I thought for sure there would be the horror movie music. But a last No, you haven't been using that much lately. Has it gone away? No? I have. I have not canceled the I have not canceled that. I actually have two of the you call horror music. But it's actually I have it labeled as done, done done, and then I have and that's this one here. I will play it done done done right. So that's the first one. And then the second clip I have is done done, done done, and that's this one right. So it all depends on my mood, but no, I did not. I did not play the the soundbites there because I've got c SPAN pulled up here on the laptop as well, and I didn't want that audio to just start playing because Trump is supposed to make an announcement. We were waiting on that at noon, so I have my laptop muted. You'll notice I have not also played any rim shots either, so my laptop is in quiet mode. That's anyway peak behind the curtain there and I'm looking at c SPAN. The announcement has now been pushed to twelve forty five, so I don't know what's going on, but that's where we stand. But remember, the mar A Lago raid was just one in a litany of weaponized law fair against Donald Trump. Because when you believe that a person is literally hitler with a spray tand then all things become justified. Right. They impeached him again, They impeached him twice. Right. They crippled his first term with the Russia collusion oaks. They then you know, prosecuted him under for the classified documents. They went after him on that, filed charges against him on that, trying to trying to put him in jail for the rest of his life, right, That's what that was about. To ensure that he could never run again, to make sure that he would never get into the White House. They did all of these things to try to make it impossible for him to get back into the White House or to live freely. They tried to take him out in all of these different ways. You had the defamation case that was brought against him by e Jen Carroll who alleged that he that he raped her in the dressing room of a popular and busy department store. You had the case brought up in New York by Tish James Letitia James that just got thrown out. The settlement just got thrown The dollar figure, the penalty just got tossed by the New York Supreme Court, which is not the Supreme Court of the State of New York, which is stupid. It's the Court of Appeals, that's the highest court in New York State, which is likely where the rest of this is going to go. That was to bankrupt the company, bankrupt the put the you know, it was a death penalty basically for the Trump organization. Bankrupt him, bankrupt the company. They tried to destroy him and his business and his family and put him in jail for the rest of his natural life. And Americans saw that, and when people like me who had never voted for Trump were saying, guys, this has Banana Republic type of stuff. You're destroyed the norms. This is now going to become the normal thing. And you're like, oh, no, it won't. And here we are. All right, So you've heard me talk about Creative Video for almost a year. But did you know they also offer a game changing app for businesses that reward their teams with incentive trips. Well they do. It's called Incentive Trip Kit. If you want a business or work at one that offers these incentive trips, this is a must have. It maximizes the impact and value of these motivational trips. It's a super easy to use app built just for your group, with private messaging, shared photos, important trip documents, even a find the group locator just in case somebody gets separated. And when I say it's private, I mean it. No personal emails, no phone numbers, no ads, no account sign ups. Everyone uses one shared login, so it's super easy, no hassles. During the trip. Everybody can post their best photos and short video clips, and folks back at the office can even follow along. And then after the trip, incentive trip Kit turns those memories into a professional storytelling video you can use to motive, inspire, and get people fired up for next year's trip. More fun, more memories, more ROI check it out now at incentive tripkit dot com or call Eric at eight eight eight five three three seventy six thirty seven Extension two O seven for the details. I am shocked, shocked at the I am shocked at the ramifications of my own decisions. Hmm Banchi at Red State said, prior to the mar A Lago raid, it was understood that no political figures or appointees ever got raided or charged over classified documents. Retention, Democrats changed that norm and now the rules still apply, right, I mean, those are the rules we warned you. Here's Sean Davis from the Federalist. We told you exactly what would happen if Biden used federal law enforcement to destroy and imprison his political enemies. We told you that once you crossed that rubicon, there was no going back. We told you how it would go down, that the toothpaste could never be put back in the tube, and you laughed and laughed because you thought you'd be in charge forever. Yeah, the consequences of your own actions. I mentioned the case against Trump for the improper accounting right that it was tried by Letitia James, who should be disbarred. She explicitly ran a campaign for Attorney general or district attorney. Yeah, yeah, I think she was DA or is the DA, No, that's Alvin Bragg. She was a G and she ran a campaign explicitly saying she was going to target a private citizen, Donald Trump. She said, vote for me. I will find something to charge him with, and she did. They used this law that had never been used before in the way that it was being used, and they brought the case, and you know, in a New York trial, they won with a judge that they needed to have there in order to rig the outcome and then slap Trump with a massive fine to put his company out of business. And now that got tossed by a Democrat panel of judges in New York State. Ed Morrissey at hot air dot com he says, is this a total vindication for Donald Trump? Not exactly, at least not yet, but any day that a court puts five hundred and twenty seven million dollars back into your pocket and keeps your business license in place, that's a very good day, indeed, right. The court declined to reverse the verdict, but called Judge Arthur Engern's judgment a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which is cruel and unusual punishment. The appellate Court reversed the entire monetary penalty and kept the business restrictions on hold. Ngeron imposed other punishments, such as banning Trump and his two eldest sons from serving in corporate leadership for a couple of years. Those provisions have been on pause during Trump's appeal, and he was able to hold off collection of the money by posting a one hundred and seventy five million dollar bond. The court declined to reverse the verdict itself, and while that is disappointing for Trump, I'm sure the panel essentially kicked that can over to the State Supreme Court make them deal with it. Jonathan Turley points out here that Judge Arthur and Goern could not get a single judge to preserve a single dollar of the fine that he hit Trump with the court found little legal or factual basis for the fine. The purported witnesses not only did not lose a dime, because remember this was about the inflation of Mara a lago or deflation. He said it was worth this amount of money, but then he went to get a loan from Deutsche Bank and said it was only worth a little bit of money or whatever, and there was no victim. The bank said it did all of its own due diligence. They knew what they were entering into. They loaned Trump the money, they got fully paid back, and they said they were happy with the deal and they would like to do more deals with him. They did not sue him. The witnesses did not only not lose any money, They testified they actually made money on the loan loans, and they wanted new loans with Trump. Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James had injected lawfare directly into the veins of New Yorkers, pledging in her campaign to beg Trump without bothering to name any crime or violation. James could not have succeeded if she did not have Judge Angeron willing to ignore reality and cook the books on the fines. She needed a partner in her lawfare. She needed angeron. Judge David Friedman detailed how the underlying law had never been used in the way it was being used in this case to attack successful private commercial transactions negotiated at arm's length between highly sophisticated parties fully capable of monitoring and defending their own interests. He accused Judge and Garon of participating in an effort clearly directed by James as ending with the derailment of Trump's political career and the destruction of his real estate business. The case isn't over. Both sides will appeal it to the state supreme court called the Court of Appeals in New York State. If Trump doesn't have the entire case tossed at that point, he'll likely take it to the US Supreme Court, and the abuses of Angern and tiss James will not sit well at that level. But in the meantime, Trump gets his money back and James and Engern have egg dripping off their faces. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.