This is an excerpt from a Lawfare column by Olivia Manes and Ben Wittes, “Thoughts on the John Bolton Indictment.”

I highly recommend the full column, as well as Lawfare’s other reporting and analysis.

…there is real cause for caution here. All criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. For a variety of reasons, that presumption deserves a certain emphasis in this case.

Because one thing we know for sure is that President Trump hates John Bolton.

And whether or not this indictment is justified—in whole or in part—it is just as surely a product of that hatred. That hatred has no legitimate role to play in prosecutorial decisions about Bolton’s conduct. And one doesn’t have to assert that Bolton is innocent to observe that it has clearly played some significant role here. The task of the court here is thus not merely to assess Bolton’s conduct but to assess the corrupting force of Trump’s hatred and vengeance.

The history of Trump’s statements and actions with respect to Bolton provide almost, though not quite, as strong a prima facie case for motion to dismiss for a vindictive prosecution motion as we can expect from Comey or James.

Trump’s ire for Bolton dates back to policy disagreements during Trump’s first term. After Bolton resigned as national security adviser (or, according to Trump, was fired) in 2019, Bolton flirted with testifying in the impeachment proceedings against the president. Even though Bolton played hard to get with the House and Senate and never ended up testifying, media reports suggested that Trump was planning reprisals against his adversaries—including Bolton.

The final paragraph sums it up: “It is to say that the presumption of innocence should never be stronger than when one knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the prosecution and its investigators are playing dirty—and doing so for nakedly political reasons. It is possible, in other words, that Bolton is both a scoundrel and a victim.”

As noted above, I highly recommend the full column.