The Germans call it ‘shadenfreude’, laughing at someone else’s misfortune. Normally, it’s socially unacceptable. But sometime — like now — it’s nothing less than poetic justice.
It’s astonishing how many of the people who step up and wag their fingers at Trump’s moral failings keep falling to the very wrongdoing of which they’ve accused him. (Right, Fanni Willis? Comey? Swallwell? Others?)
Bolton was excited to join Trump45 as his third National Security advisor. But it didn’t take long before he realized that Trump was not the sort of President who would embrace every policy his National Security Advisor endorsed. The fact that Trump favoured peaceful resolutions over open hostility (where possible) incensed him. After firing Bolton by way of a Tweet, and publicly mocking his warlike tendencies, Bolton never recovered from that slight.
In 2024, he went out of his way to oppose Trump’s Primay run calling him ‘unfit’ for his office, specifically citing the handling of public documents.
Here’s one example of his public statements at the time.
This one is an example of Bolton pushing for the criminal trial of Donald J Trump for possessing documents he claimed Trump ought not have.
John Bolton spent 2024 going on every cable show in America smearing President Trump as a criminal for retaining classified documents.
Today he pled guilty to doing exactly what he falsely accused President Trump of.
The irony is unreal! pic.twitter.com/vOi7OFuEl5
— Jenn Pellegrino 🇺🇸 (@JennPellegrino) June 4, 2026
Of course, even Biden’s legal counsel recognized that a President is in a unique position with respect to what documents might or might not legally remain in his personal possession, since he’s designated by the Constitution as the literal embodiment of the Second article powers, from whom every Executive Branch appointee or employee derives their just powers.
Under the agreement, Bolton will pay a fine of more than $2 million. A single count of illegal retention carries a possible sentence of up to 60 months in prison.
[…]
According to the indictment, Bolton used personal email and messaging accounts to transmit Top Secret intelligence about foreign adversaries, future attacks, and U.S. foreign-policy relations. He also kept classified files at his home, including sensitive intelligence about foreign leaders and U.S. intelligence sources.
The FBI Baltimore Field Office led the investigation, with oversight from the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The indictment outlines two core allegations:
Eight counts of transmission of NDI under the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. §793(d)),
and Ten counts of unlawful retention of NDI under §793(e).
The investigation intensified after Bolton’s email was breached by suspected Iranian hackers, during which investigators discovered the classified “diary-like entries.” — ZeroHedge
How ironic that Iranian hackers got into his personal files. The plea deal does not include allegations of TRANSMISSION of those secret files, presumably to his wife and daughter as they relate to the book he published without vetting it for information he could not lawfully share.
The case came about in the first place because Bolton was in such a rush to publish his book in time to damage Trump’s re-election chances that he skipped the vetting process, and published it with content that had not been given classified clearance. The case to block publishing became moot, because it was already widely distributed, which turned it into a criminal case.
The same book that claimed Trump was unfit became his own eventual undoing.
Schadenfreude.
