The Feds move in on Bolton

“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” FBI director Kash Patel posted on X at 7 a.m. ET. He provided a solution to that cryptogram soon after, as agents raided the Bethesda home of permanently grouchy former Trump national security advisor John Bolton. Over his pre-raid morning coffee, Bolton was criticizing Trump’s Russia-Ukraine negotiations, calling them basically useless: “Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress,” he wrote. Soon after, the cars pulled up. Whoops!

A source told Daily Caller editor Vince Coglianese, “This is related to a national security investigation of Mr. Bolton that was shut down by the Biden administration for political reasons. It involves stealing classified documents and weaponizing them for political purposes. Kash Patel and Dan Bongino have reopened the investigation. Hence this morning’s raid.”

John Bolton has the right to either remain silent or tweet whatever he wants, but though he remains a free man, charges may loom. Cockburn is no fan of the Walrus’s war machinations, and is interested to see how this particular saga unfolds. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino tweeted this morning, “Public corruption will not be tolerated.”

Meanwhile Roger Stone, no stranger to house raids, said on X: “Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 o’clock in the morning?”

Visiting the People’s House gift shop this morning while wearing a red MAGA cap emblazoned with the slogan “Trump was right about everything,” President Trump had this to say about the Bolton warrant: “Don’t know about it. Saw it on television this morning. Not a fan, he’s sort of a lowlife. He’s a very quiet person, except on television if he can say something bad about Trump. Not a smart guy, could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”

Cockburn hears there are a few beds open at Alligator Alcatraz.

On our radar

HAVING A BALL The President took reporters – including The Spectator’s Matt McDonald – to look at architectural improvement being made by the administration. They have stopped at the People’s House, which has a new gift shop, and are outside the Kennedy Center, where the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw will be held.

CAPITAL CRACKDOWN Seventy-six arrests were made last night as part of the White House’s temporary federalization of DC law enforcement. That brings the total to 719 made since Trump activated the emergency clause of the 1973 Home Rule Act. Of the 719, 36 were illegal aliens.

PAT ON THE BACK Representative Riley Moore has urged President Trump to confer the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, onto Pat Buchanan. The journalist, Nixon aide and three-time populist candidate for the White House is widely seen as something of a John the Baptist for MAGA, emphasizing the same core agenda of immigration controls and a rebalancing of the terms of trade. Such a gong for Buchanan would formalize the inheritance.

Counterrevolution in Minnesota?

Is the Democratic establishment – whose obituary has been read many times over the past decade – now twitching back to life? Possibly – in Minnesota at least. The Democratic Farmer Labour party (the Democrats’ local chapter) has taken the remarkable step of revoking its earlier endorsement of Omar Fateh, the Zohran Mamdani-like candidate for mayor of Minneapolis.

Their reason? The Minneapolis DFL’s Convention last month, where Mr. Fateh received his endorsement, was widely seen as a fiasco with numerous allegations of rule-breaking and irregularity. The DFL received no less than 98 formal challenges to the result from participants. According to delegate Will Stancil, there were a number of dubious last-minute rule changes that favored Fateh, a malfunctioning electronic voting system, and general procedural skulduggery. Stancil made no less than four attempts to vote before his choice was recorded. As a result, the DFL’s endorsement has now been “vacated” – throwing an unexpected lifeline to the incumbent Jacob Frey, the more centrist candidate, though someone who presided over some of the worst rioting of summer 2020.

The forward march of the Democratic far-left seems to have been checked in Minnesota. Cockburn, for his part, welcomes this sudden and by no means cynical conversion to the cause of election integrity.

RFK Jr.’s good jeans

It’s the viral fitness challenge that’s taking the MAGAsphere by storm: cabinet secretaries Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are laying down the gauntlet of the “Pete & Bobby Challenge” to their peers. The ask: 100 push-ups, 50 pull-ups, 10 minutes – ostensibly as part of an effort to Make America Healthy Again. In the snazzy viral video promoting the effort, shot at the Pentagon Gym with hyper-fit members of the military, the septuagenarian Secretary Kennedy busts out the challenge in close to five minutes, sporting a pair of blue jeans.

RFK Jr.’s commitment to denim knows no limits. An athletic-minded tipster was sweltering away in the Georgetown Gold’s Gym on Wednesday morning, as the air conditioning was broken. Sat opposite him, without a bead of sweat on him: RFK Jr. In jeans.