Monday News Roundup

Everything you need to know to start your week.

RETRIBUTION — The FBI on Friday raided the Maryland home and D.C. office of John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during the first Trump administration but has since become a top Trump critic. According to the New York Post, the search was connected to an investigation into “Bolton’s alleged use of a private email to send classified national security documents to his wife and daughter from his work desk before his dismissal by Trump in September 2019.” The probe, initially launched in 2020, has been reopened by investigators.

As the Washington Post notes, Trump has been publicly and privately complaining about Bolton recently, upset that his ex-aide has been criticizing his efforts to mediate the Russia/Ukraine war. Trump announced another threat Sunday to mix law enforcement with politics, musing on Truth Social that “perhaps” federal prosecutors should reopen the investigation into “Bridgegate,” the 2013 scandal that ensnared then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another Trump critic-turned-ally-turned-critic.

• Recommended read: This New York Times piece on the Trump team’s moves within the Justice Department to purge officials with any connection to investigating January 6th is worth spending some time with. (Gift link)

FRIDAY NEWS DUMP — The Justice Department released transcripts Friday from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator. Maxwell told Blanche that she never witnessed President Trump “in any inappropriate setting in any way.”

It is unclear if the transcripts — plus materials being handed over to the House Oversight Committee, most of which were already public —will be enough to quell the Epstein furor on Capitol Hill, where Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) are still planning an effort to force a House vote on releasing more documents when Congress returns from recess.

LATEST FROM DC — Some National Guard members in Washington, D.C. will now be armed, a shift from the Pentagon’s previous policy, which had called for them to go without their weapons unless it was warranted by the circumstances. In a potential move to replicate its efforts in D.C., the Trump administration is discussing deploying National Guard members to Chicago as well, although no plans have been finalized.

HAPPENING TODAY — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged gang member who was controversially deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration earlier this year, but then brought back to the U.S. to face human trafficking charges in Tennessee, was taken into ICE custody once again this morning.

Abrego Garcia was released from custody in Tennessee last week, after a judge ruled that the government had failed to prove its case that he would pose a threat to the public if released before his trial. ICE officials had said if he was released, they would attempt to deport him; according to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, they have threatened to deport him to Uganda, while offering to switch his destination to Costa Rica if he agrees to plead guilty to the charges in Tennessee. Abrego Garcia did not take that deal.

• Also today: Trump will meet with the president of South Korea and sign an executive order expected to threaten to withhold federal funding for D.C. if the city doesn’t end its cashless bail policy, which allows suspects to be released from custody before their trial without paying any money.

CLEVER PIECE — President Trump hasn’t exactly been shy about his goal of winning a Nobel Peace Prize. But how exactly is the prize awarded? By a vote of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The only problem? According to the Washington Post, three of the committee’s five members have criticized Trump in the past, which doesn’t exactly bode well for his chances.

AMBASSADOR KUSHNER — Jared Kushner’s father is causing a diplomatic row in Paris. Charles Kushner, the U.S. ambassador to France, penned an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron in the Wall Street Journal last week about his “deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it.”

Macron’s government didn’t take it well. Kushner was summoned to the French foreign ministry on Sunday, a traditional step for a host country to express their displeasure with a foreign diplomat.

QUOTE OF NOTE — “Congress really is, in its own weird way, irredeemable,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) tells NOTUS.

Biggs, who is leaving Congress to run for Arizona governor, is one of several House Freedom Caucus fleeing the Hill to seek state office.

ICYMI — The paywall on my Friday Q&A post, “Has Trump Really Ended Six Wars?”, got cut off earlier than I intended. Check it out here if you’ve been wondering whether Trump has been telling the truth about his supposed six peace deals.

FUN READ — “Joshes are having a moment,” NBC News reports.

Josh is now the second-most common name for American governors (behind Mike), with three in total: all Jewish Democrats (Green from Hawaii, Stein from North Carolina, and Shapiro from Pennsylvania). The trio does have a group chat together, Green told NBC.