John Bolton Warned Days Ago Trump Was Coming After Him: ‘The Retribution Presidency’

Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton warned earlier in the month that President Donald Trump was coming for him when asked about being on FBI Director Kash Patel’s “enemies list” by ABC News’s Jonathan Karl.

Bolton’s Maryland home was raided by the FBI in the early morning hours of Friday, in what media outlets reported was a “national security probe” related to allegations Bolton improperly held on to classified material.

“Before you go, we’re about to talk about Trump’s retribution campaign. We’re seeing it at the FBI and the Justice Department. You’re obviously on his enemies list, at least Kash Patel’s enemies list. Are you worried that they’re going to come after you in some way? I mean, he’s hinted at it before,” asked Karl.

“Well, I think he’s already come after me and several others in withdrawing the protection that we had from the Iranians for the attack on Qasem Soleimani. So I think, and I said in the new foreword to the paperback edition of my book, I think it is a retribution presidency,” Bolton replied.

In June 2020, the first Trump administration sued Bolton and tried to stop the release of his book chronicling his time working for the president. The suit claimed at the time that Bolton’s manuscript was “rife with classified information” and that Bolton had stopped cooperating with the White House’s vetting of the book — which was eventually published.

Simon & Schuster, Bolton’s publisher, defended the book at the time and blasted the Trump administration’s suit as “nothing more than the latest in a long-running series of efforts by the Administration to quash publication of a book it deems unflattering to the President.”

Bolton and Trump had very public falling out, which resulted in public insults and character attacks. Bolton’s fierce criticism of Trump landed him on Patel’s “enemies list,” which he published in his own book titled, “Government Gangsters.”

Watch the clip above.