Breaking: Trump’s Former National Security Adviser John Bolton Indicted

Summary

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Bulwark Takes – “Breaking: Trump’s Former National Security Adviser John Bolton Indicted”

Date: October 16, 2025
Hosts: Sam Stein & Tim Miller

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Episode Overview

Breaking news is at the center of this urgent edition of Bulwark Takes, where Sam Stein and Tim Miller discuss the federal indictment of John Bolton, former National Security Adviser to Donald Trump. The hosts dissect the legal, political, and societal ramifications, draw comparisons to prior controversial prosecutions, and reflect on the state of American institutions under continued political strain. The tone fluctuates between incredulity, gallows humor, and sober analysis as they consider the implications for democracy and the rule of law.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Indictment of John Bolton

[00:30-01:27]

• The News: John Bolton indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland for allegedly sharing “highly classified information” with his wife and daughter over email.
• Details: The emails were reportedly sent using an AOL account, which the hosts mock as anachronistic but fitting for someone of Bolton’s generation.

“Are you surprised Bolton's still on the AOL email account?”
— Tim Miller [01:23]

“It’s him and like David Axelrod.”
— Sam Stein [01:27]

2. The New Normal of Political Indictments

[01:27-02:31]

• Routine Outrage: Indicting political opponents (e.g., Jim Comey, Letitia James) has become almost mundane, which Stein finds “the most shocking element.”
• Pattern Recognition: Miller notes Trump’s team targets opponents “who don’t have huge constituencies.” This marks a strategic, incremental approach.

3. Equivalence & Banana Republic Analogies

[02:31-04:16]

• Disproportion and Double Standards: Miller points out the hypocrisy of prosecuting Bolton for (alleged) minor misuse of classified information while Trump's own serious security breaches (Mar-a-Lago documents) went unpunished at first.
• Chilling Effect: The hosts use “banana republic” analogies to express concern that America’s democracy is slipping into retribution-based governance.
• Calls for Accountability: Miller frames Trump’s initial impunity as the “original sin,” spawning this cycle of investigations and counter-investigations.

“It feels like we’re in a banana republic, and the thing that really is unfortunate is I think now, an average person... feels that way.”
— Tim Miller [03:33]

4. False Equivalence and Public Perception

[04:16-05:39]

• Rejecting ‘Both Sides’ Rhetoric: Stein pushes back on claims of equivalence, highlighting the difference between negligent mishandling (Bolton) and willful obstruction (Trump at Mar-a-Lago).
• Public Cynicism: There’s concern that casual observers will conclude all politicians are corrupt and weaponize the system.

“No, these are not equal things... hoarding classified documents in Mar-a-Lago... is of a wholly different level than what has been alleged... with respect to Bolton.”
— Sam Stein [04:39]

5. Erosion of Justice & Institutional Integrity

[05:50-07:35]

• Jack Smith & DOJ Precedents: Referencing a speech by special counsel Jack Smith, they discuss how partisans are being appointed to prosecute cases against political enemies right before statutes of limitation expire.
• Partisan Law Enforcement: The contrast between aggressive pursuit of foes and leniency toward allies (referencing the Eric Adams case) is seen as deeply corrosive.

“If you wanted to erode the rule of law, what you do is you get rid of non-partisan apolitical prosecutors.”
— Tim Miller (paraphrasing Jack Smith) [06:55]

6. The Last Guardrail: The Jury System

[07:28-07:43]

• Faith in Ordinary Citizens?: Miller closes the legal segment by pointing out that if courts and juries go along with these prosecutions, “we’re in trouble.” He jokes about hoping for a “West Wing” moment where the jury system holds up.

7. Institutional Transformation and Party-State Dynamics

[08:04-09:00]

• Timothy Snyder Quotation: Stein reads historian Snyder, warning the shift is not the destruction of the state but its subordination to a party or movement—a “party-state” dynamic similar to authoritarian regimes.
• Acceleration: They note the speed of these changes in the US, drawing contrast with slower historical examples of democratic backsliding.

“It’s not that the state is going away, it’s the state becoming (secondary) to some other project… the party was on top… Today is a little bit different from the prior cases because those actually went more slowly.”
— Timothy Snyder (read by Sam Stein) [08:42]

8. The Personal Toll and Silence of the GOP Old Guard

[09:03-10:05]

• On Bolton Personally: Miller, while generally critical of Bolton, sympathizes with him as one of the few willing to oppose Trump, lamenting the personal cost and the silence (or complicity) of most other officials from the first Trump administration.

“Even if he does get acquitted, this is something that is totally uncalled for and just a gangster type government that we should not be in any way letting the country slide towards.”
— Tim Miller [10:00]

9. Pentagon Press Corps Shakeup – Comedic Interlude

[10:05-12:04]

• Press Corps Exodus: Stein shares an aside about major outlets resigning from the Pentagon press pool, leaving only a motley crew of far-right media, foreign outlets (notably Turkish), and obscure bloggers.
• Failed State Humor: Miller and Stein lampoon the absurdity, comparing it to political satire like “Veep,” and wryly noting Turkish dominance in Pentagon reporting.

“This is failed stage. It just is, really.”
— Tim Miller [11:36]

“It’s like comically failed stage. It’s like Veep failed stage.”
— Sam Stein [11:39]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|--------------|-------| | 01:23 | Tim Miller | “Are you surprised Bolton's still on the AOL email account?” | | 03:33 | Tim Miller | “It feels like we’re in a banana republic, and the thing that really is unfortunate is I think now, an average person... feels that way.” | | 04:39 | Sam Stein | “No, these are not equal things... hoarding classified documents in Mar-a-Lago... is of a wholly different level than what has been alleged... with respect to Bolton.” | | 06:55 | Tim Miller | “If you wanted to erode the rule of law, what you do is you get rid of non-partisan apolitical prosecutors.” (paraphrasing Jack Smith) | | 08:42 | Sam Stein | “It’s not that the state is going away, it’s the state becoming (secondary) to some other project… the party was on top… Today is a little bit different from the prior cases because those actually went more slowly.” (quoting Timothy Snyder) | | 11:36 | Tim Miller | “This is failed stage. It just is, really.” | | 11:39 | Sam Stein | “It’s like comically failed stage. It’s like Veep failed stage.” |

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Important Timestamps

• 00:30 – Breaking news on Bolton’s indictment.
• 01:27 – Indictments of Trump foes becoming mundane.
• 02:31 – Banana republic and systemic erosion concerns.
• 04:16 – Equivalence vs. actual misconduct.
• 05:50 – Citing Jack Smith, erosion of prosecutorial norms.
• 08:04 – Timothy Snyder’s party-state warning.
• 09:03 – Reflection on Bolton, GOP old guard silence.
• 10:05 – Pentagon press corps changes; satire.

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Summary

In sum, Stein and Miller use the breaking news of Bolton’s indictment as a springboard to explore the deepening crisis of politicized justice in America. They highlight the dangers of equating vastly different abuses of power, worry about the loss of institutional independence, and employ both humor and historical analogies to express alarm at the pace of democratic decline. The episode is a mix of sharp-tongued commentary, gallows humor, and genuine concern for the future of American governance.

Transcript

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[Sam Stein]

Hey, everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark and I'm joined by Tim Miller. And we have some breaking news. Breaking but not unexpected this afternoon. On Thursday, John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security Advisor, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland. This is being reported by a number of different outlets. It is for allegedly sharing what is being described as, quote, highly classified information with his wife and daughter over email. This is according to sources on cena.

[Tim Miller]

Now, Tim, before email hygiene practices are now very important to the Trump administration. Again, you don't want to share anything. Not over email. Not over signal.

[Sam Stein]

No, I was gonna say if you do it over signal, you're fine.

[Tim Miller]

Obviously a fun little antofo. Get into the serious part of it. Apparently it was in an AOL email account.

[Sam Stein]

Not surprised.

[Tim Miller]

Are you surprised Bolton's still on the AOL email account? No, not.

[Sam Stein]

There's like 20 of them out there. They're all of a certain age and genre. So, yeah, I'm not surprised. It's John Bolton. It's him and like David Axelrod. Look, I will just say this. It used to be that a story like this would have caused five alarm fire. It's a clear indictment of a presidential opponent, someone who Trump has targeted nonstop. But this is now the third, following James Comey and Letitia James. And it feels almost mundane, honestly, which to me is maybe the most shocking element of it, is that it's just part of our existence now in this.

[Tim Miller]

First swath of people they've targeted. We've talked about this like they, it does feel intentional. They went after people who don't have huge constituencies. Obviously John Bolton and Jim Comey in particular don't have huge fan bases anywhere in the country.

[Sam Stein]

You, you and Bill.

[Tim Miller]

I'm right here. Even I'm John Bolton. Not really even my cup of tea, to be honest. So Jim Comey, though. I do, I do, I do have it. I do. Like, I am charmed by Jim Comey. Made a bad mistake in the fall of 2016, but there for the grace of God going forward.

[Sam Stein]

Why do we need to relive that?

[Tim Miller]

He has not made a mistake. Throw the first stone. So, you know, look, he targets these folks. This stuff is obviously varying degrees of ticky tack. And we'll see the details about what Bolton did. It's hard to imagine that the class information that's in these emails to his wife and daughter contain things that are more serious than, say, the classified documents that were in Donald Trump's bathroom at Mar A Lago, where people are kind of walking in and out of Mar A Lago. There are Chinese operatives that are members of Mar A Lago, there are cougars down there that have access to the bathroom. Donald Trump sexually assaulted people, allegedly in some of those bathrooms. So, like, you know, a lot of people coming in and out of the bathrooms that had the classified documents in them and a country club. So, you know, I mean, it's hard to take seriously the fact that the DOJ thought that this was a real threat to national security and that they needed to do it right before the statute of limitations dropped out. Like, it is obviously a targeting of his foes. It's extremely chilling. You said maybe. It feels mundane, and I guess there is. I feel that, like, the other thing I feel, though, is that, like, it just feels like we're in a banana republic. It feels like we're in a banana republic. And I think that. And I think that the thing that really is unfortunate about all of it is I think that now, like, an average person in the country feels that way, because it's hard for them to kind of navigate through all the details and the legal details of all this stuff and all the Trump indictments and investigations and like, the fact. Fact that we put a criminal fraud in the presidency, that he tried an insurrection and that he was not impeached and convicted was the original sin here because it led to all of this other fallout where Donald Trump is being investigated. Now he's counter investigating. And it feels like something that's happening in a developing democracy or collapsing one.

[Sam Stein]

I guess I totally agree with that. It is true that the de facto defense, if you say, hey, this seems way unethical in a complete politicization of law enforcement, the sort of defense you're always gonna get is, well, they went after him, they went after him. He's just. Tables turned. I voted for this shoe on the other foot. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And I think at some point, I mean, it's hard to make this point, but it's like, no, these are not equal things. Right? Hoarding classified documents in Mar a Lago in your bathroom and then actively trying to hide them from the government, which went to you and said, hey, you might have classified documents. Bring them back like they weren't even going after you. But, like, you were like, no, no, no. And then hiding the. And concealing those documents is of a wholly different, like, level than what has been alleged, at least according to these reports, with respect to Bolton. And, you know, the timing is conspicuous and all that. And then, you know, actively saying, hey, Pam, go after these people. And then having your Attorney General go after these people is of a wholly different level than letting your Justice Department operate with independence and they uncover stuff that they have to go after. And I just think we're, you know, we're in such a bad place here because everything's getting muddied and.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

And also, I guess I am worried about a lot of, like, kind of casual political observers who just look at this and they're like, wow, I guess this is just how it is. And like, you know, man, I guess everyone's just gonna go after their opponents. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

In the new morning newsletter this morning, Will Salatin had the speech from Jack Smith that he gave George Mason. I mean, what he says is all obvious, but it's interesting coming from him and somebody that was taking a serious investigation into the President for his attempt to overturn our democracy. And, you know, and he says about me that the career prosecutor said this wasn't a case. They brought someone in who's never been a prosecutor to secure an indictment a day before the statute of limitations ended. He talks about the Eric Adams thing, which we stopped talking about, which is kind of the other side of this. You're targeting your opponents and then you're giving, you know, penance. You know, you're giving a get a jail free card to anybody that is on your side. So he says about Eric Adams, I've been doing this 30 years. I've never heard of such a thing, is what Jack Smith said about that.

[Sam Stein]

Well, he also talked about the signal thing. Right? He was like, if that ever happened in any other Justice Department, you would automatically open an investigation into how Pete Hegseth and all these people are on signal talking about war plans. But they didn't.

[Tim Miller]

At the final point that Salatin gets into is where Smith talks about the long term ramifications of this, where he says, if you wanted to erode the rule of law, what you do is you get rid of non partisan apolitical prosecutors. Yeah. And that's like what's happening here. They're getting rid of prosecutors that won't do this. Hacks are self selecting in and you know, we'll see grand juries, it's. We've talked about this a bunch. I know it's very easy to get a grand jury indictment. The rules are just stacked towards the government. So we'll see if any of these cases go anywhere. No.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, yeah, that's it. Like if they, that's it. Like if they go anywhere then we're in trouble. If the courts say this is nice.

[Tim Miller]

That the last guardrail is kind of our fellow Americans. 12Americans in a jury box does that. Can you feel the West Wing music coming in now?

[Dutch Company Representative]

No.

[Sam Stein]

Well, I got too much. I have JVL on one shoulder being like how can we trust our fellow citizens when they voted? But yes, maybe, maybe there is hope for optimism. The other part of that newsletter was from Bill. So the newsletter this morning was like exceptionally long, like 3,000 words.

[Tim Miller]

But Bill, sign up for it [e-mail] if you're in the market for an exceptionally long morning newsletter. That's great, Great.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. This one, if you read it, it brought you into the mid morning. Timothy Snyder who was talking about just the creeping authoritarianism which really isn't that creeping. And I just want to read something that kind of stayed with me. He was talking about the takeover institutions. He said on the institutions it strikes me that they're going really quickly and the thing that they're trying to establish is something like a party state. So it's not that the state is going away, it's the state is becoming to some other project which is what of course the fascists and the communists had in common. They didn't do away with the state but the state was secondary to a movement as they called it, or a party. So the state functioned but the party was on top of it. The party ran through it. The worrying thing for me is that today is a little bit different from the prior cases because those actually went more slowly and it got me thinking. It's like, yeah, we're like nine to 10 months in and this, this is all like, it's fast. One more thing. Wait, one more thing before I go. Unless you have thoughts on Timothy Snyder.

[Tim Miller]

No, I had one more thing on Bolton. So you go on.

[Sam Stein]

Well, this is totally unrelated to Bolton. So you go to Bolton and I'll give you my.

[Tim Miller]

I was just going to say again, I think a lot of John Bolton's foreign policy was downright crazy and irresponsible and there are a bunch of stuff that he did that I didn't like. But there's something to be said for the fact about how few of them there are of people from that first administration that are speaking out right now, which is kind of a lot of them are in hiding. Bolton. Yeah, Ty Cobb, my man. It was good to have him on the pot earlier this week and what he, what he talked about, his steel balls. I appreciated that from Ty Cobb. But man, a lot of folks are in hiding. A lot of folks have decided to throw in the towel and go in with him. You know, this is sucks for Bolton and like his family, his wife, they're going to go through this and lawyers and all that. So even if he does get acquitted, this is something that is totally uncalled for and just a gangster type government that we should not be in any way letting the country slide towards.

[Sam Stein]

No, it's really bad. Unrelated. Although I guess you can make a relation about sort of the banana republic element of this. I know you've been following the issues of the Pentagon press corps and how they're just now resigning this stuff. Did you see they reported on the, the outlets that did in fact sign the pledge?

[Tim Miller]

As of the last I saw it was one American news and the Federalist has that.

[Sam Stein]

I'm going to read you. There's about 15 or so. This is, this is the Federalist Epoch Times.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, the Epoch Times, which is the Chinese dissident propaganda website. Yeah. Great.

[Sam Stein]

Oan. So congrats to Matt Gaetz. Here's where it gets really funny. The Turkish newspaper Aksum. Three individuals from the Turkish state run an DULO agency. Two Turkish freelancers. God, we have so many Turkish people in the fucking Pentagon press corps. Now a reporter for the Australian, which is an Australian news outlet. An Afghan freelancer and three lesser known operations, AWPS News, the India Globe and a blog called Journal Korea.

[Tim Miller]

So that's the Pentagon press corps. Now.

[Sam Stein]

This is the in house Pentagon press.

[Tim Miller]

Imagine if you're the Journal Korea blogger now who just gets the first question every day at the, at the brief Mr. X.

[Sam Stein]

Who else is he going to call on? I, you know, you can only call on Oan so many times. Congrats to the Journal Korea.

[Tim Miller]

This is fa. This is failed stage. It just is really.

[Sam Stein]

It's like comically failed stage. It's like Veep failed stage. Oh my God. How much Turkish cover. How many Turkish questions is the hexa's.

[Tim Miller]

Gonna have to big year for Turkey, I will say. I mean, Erdogan. And they orchestrated the coup in Syria, basically. So they got a scalp there, and now they're basically, you know, the paper of record for the American Defense Department.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. You know, this is a great assignment for Max Tani. I'm gonna call him up and say you gotta do a piece on Turkey in the US Press. Oh, yeah. All right, buddy. Keep up the good spirits.

[Tim Miller]

I'm doing my best.

[Sam Stein]

All right, subscribe to the feed, everybody. Talk to you.

[Tim Miller]

See you soon.

[Sam Stein]

Later.