‘No one is above the law,’ we were told

OPINION:

“The Mar-a-Lago raid proves the U.S. isn’t a banana republic,” an Atlantic headline read on Aug. 8, 2022. The article continued: “A bedrock principle is that no one — not even the president, much less the former president — is above the law, and if they commit crimes, they must answer for them.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the FBI sweep of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, where agents rummaged through former first lady Melania Trump’s underwear drawer, showed that no one in the U.S. is above the law.

“We believe in the rule of law. That is what our country is about,” Mrs. Pelosi said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show at the time. “And no person is above the law. Not even the president of the United States. Not even a former president of the United States.”

The raid was related to an investigation into Mr. Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents, even though he had declassification powers as president, and was widely heralded by the corporate media and Democrats as to how a functioning democracy works.

“No one is above the law, and the rule of law in a democracy … has to be our standard,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on ABC’s “The View” in September 2022, speaking of the federal investigation into Mr. Trump, signed off by Merrick Garland, President Biden’s attorney general.

“We should be concerned about it, and we should follow the evidence,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“I don’t think he cared about the classification system. I don’t think he appreciated the sensitivity of this information, and he didn’t appreciate the sensitivity of how it was often acquired, the so-called sources and methods,” John R. Bolton explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” after the Mar-a-Lago raid, speaking of the former president.

“This had been briefed to him before I arrived; it was repeated frequently. I think it simply had no impact on him whatever,” Mr. Bolton concluded, talking about the time he served as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser and Mr. Trump’s carelessness over handling classified material, and praising the FBI raid.

Fast-forward to Friday and the FBI raid on Mr. Bolton’s home over what appears to be his mishandling of classified materials. Democrats and the mainstream media’s tune has changed. The raid is being categorized as “political retribution,” and Mr. Trump’s “weaponizing” the system against his enemies. Former NBC anchor Chuck Todd bemoaned on X: “The virus killing democracy right now is this ‘two wrongs make a right’ mindset. Revenge over principles.”

Wasn’t the “principle” articulated to us by Democrats and the mainstream media over the past decade that “no one is above the law?” Why is it classified as “revenge” when Republicans hold Democrats to their own standard?

After Mr. Bolton was fired as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser in September 2019, he wrote a tell-all memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” about his experience. The memoir was highly critical of the Trump administration. He had it published a year later without proper clearance from the administration.

At the time, Mr. Trump said Mr. Bolton’s book disclosed classified information. In June 2020, the Justice Department sought an emergency court order blocking its publication. The White House filed a lawsuit against Mr. Bolton, demanding that the book’s release date be delayed. Mr. Trump said Mr. Bolton had broken a nondisclosure agreement signed as a condition of his employment.

A federal judge ruled in Mr. Bolton’s favor, and the book was published on June 23, 2020. That September, however, The New York Times reported that Mr. Bolton was the subject of a criminal investigation into alleged disclosure of classified information. In June 2021, after Mr. Biden took office, that investigation was shut down for “political reasons,” a source told the New York Post on Friday.

The second Trump administration appears to have reopened the investigation, and the facts of the case or any related charges will be forthcoming. As with Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago raid, in which all charges were eventually dropped, we will have to wait and see where it goes.

Still, it’s rich that Democrats cry foul after perpetrating the Russia collusion hoax and waging lawfare against Mr. Trump for the past decade.

“What the president is trying to do here is very systemic and systematic, and that is, anyone who stands up to the president, anyone who criticizes the president, anyone who says anything adverse to the president’s interests, gets the full weight of the federal government brought down on them,” Sen. Adam B. Schiff, who did his best to prolong the Russia collusion hoax against Mr. Trump, opined Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He continued: “They’re essentially going after any critic, any opposition in an effort to intimidate them. That’s what this is about. It’s not, it’s not about Bolton per se. It’s about anyone else that, like Bolton, might stand up to the president.”

No, Mr. Schiff. The Bolton raid proves that the U.S. isn’t a banana republic. It demonstrates that no one is above the law — not Democrats, not Trump critics, no one — and that is a bedrock principle of our democracy. We must take this matter seriously and follow the evidence wherever it may lead. If someone commits a crime, they must answer for it.

• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.