John Bolton Defends ‘Devastating Indictment’ From Trump Defenders: ‘This Really is a Rifle Shot’

Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton viewed Donald Trump’s indictment as a “rifle shot” to the former president’s hopes of getting re-elected to the White House.

Bolton joined CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Monday to discuss the fallout from Trump’s indictment on 37 criminal counts for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and alleged illegal retention of classified documents. Asked to explain the nature of the documents, Bolton spoke of the national security secrets Trump knew he was keeping in the documents that were still classified.

“If he has anything like what the complaint, what the indictment alleges — and of course, the government will have to prove it — then he has committed very serious crimes,” Bolton said. “This is a devastating indictment…Not only is it powerful, it’s very narrowly tailored. They didn’t throw everything up against the wall to see what would stick. This really is a rifle shot, and I think it should be the end of Donald Trump’s political career.”

The conversation pivoted when Mattingly brought up Trump’s fellow Republicans, who’ve argued that “a trial or an indictment of a former president and the front-runner in the Republican nomination is far worse for the country than what actually happened here.”

Bolton said, “I don’t buy that argument at all,” and wondered if that would lead to the erasure of standards for holding politicians accountable to the law.

Assume, for example, for the sake of discussion, that Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, fill in the blank, should be indicted. Should be prosecuted, and the failure to do so constitutes a double standard. Just assume that for purposes of discussion. Now look at this indictment of Donald Trump. Do those people who make that complaint say ‘therefore, the answer is not to prosecute Donald Trump?’ That the response to a double standard is to move to no standard at all? Absolutely not.

You know, Republicans used to believe that not prosecuting criminals led to more crime. The answer here is take the politics out of the decision and in this case, proceed with the prosecution and do the same for anybody else who does anything even remotely like it.

Bolton hoped that Trump’s Republican primary rivals would “tell voters the truth” about the indictment.

Watch above via CNN.