John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, is reportedly under investigation for allegedly mishandling classified information. If held to his own standard, then his days as a free man might be numbered.

Nearly a year after the FBI’s 2022 raid of Trump’s Palm Beach residence, Jack Smith — the special counsel illegally appointed by Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland — charged Trump with supposedly mishandling classified information.

‘Bolton likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreements.’

Bolton was among those who rushed to attack the president, happily touring liberal newsrooms with smears and speculation. He told Biden press secretary turned MSNBC talking head Jen Psaki, for instance, that he was “pretty confident” the allegations in the Trump indictment were true.

While admittedly oblivious to the contents of the documents that Trump supposedly retained, Bolton told CNN, “They did go to absolute, the most important secrets that the United States has, directly affecting national security, directly affecting the lives and safety of our service members and our civilian population. If he has anything like what … the indictment alleges, and of course the government will have to prove it, then he has committed very serious crimes.”

“This really is a rifle shot,” Bolton said in reference to the indictment, “and I think it should be the end of Donald Trump’s political career.”

While Trump’s case was ultimately dismissed, Bolton’s troubles with the law are apparently beginning to snowball.

RELATED: Jack Smith tried to take Trump off the board. Now he’s set for a reckoning.

FBI conducts authorized search of Bolton’s house on Aug. 22. Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

The FBI raided Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland, on the morning of Aug. 22 on FBI Director Kash Patel’s orders. Later in the day, federal agents searched Bolton’s Washington, D.C., office.

A top U.S. official told the New York Post that the raid was in connection with a resurrected probe involving Bolton’s alleged use of a private email server to send classified national security documents to family members from his work desk prior to his September 2019 dismissal by Trump.

The official told the Post, “While Bolton was a national security adviser, he was literally stealing classified information, utilizing his family as a cutout.”

‘Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail.’

In Trump’s first term, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into whether Bolton disclosed classified information in his book, “The Room Where It Happened,” after first proving unable to stop the publication of the book with a lawsuit.

The Trump administration failed to secure an injunction because Bolton’s book had already made its way into the hands of booksellers.

“Bolton likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreements,” wrote U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. “The government sufficiently alleges that Bolton disclosed information without confirming that the information was unclassified.”

Lamberth noted further that while “Bolton may indeed have caused the country irreparable harm,” “with hundreds of thousands of copies around the globe — many in newsrooms — the damage is done.”

RELATED: Gabbard CLEANS HOUSE after warning Brennan, Clapper ‘have a lot of their own people’ squirreled away

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Trump noted in June 2020, “Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.”

The case was referred to the DOJ by then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, but the resulting investigation was torpedoed by President Joe Biden’s administration for “political reasons,” according a top U.S. official.

The probe has been reopened — and it appears that the stakes are higher than previously acknowledged, as Bolton’s alleged carelessness was exploited by a foreign regime.

Individuals said to be familiar with the investigation but speaking on the condition of anonymity recently told the New York Times that the U.S. gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service and found emails containing sensitive information that Bolton allegedly sent to individuals “close to him” on an unclassified system while still working for the Trump administration.

It is presently unclear which adversarial nation obtained the emails.

The individuals familiar with the probe indicated that the emails contained information apparently taken from classified documents Bolton had seen while serving as Trump’s national security adviser.

Bolton is evidently taking the investigation seriously, having reportedly had discussions with Abbe Lowell, the high-profile criminal defense attorney who has represented pardoned felon Hunter Biden, New York state Attorney General Letitia James, and ex-Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook.

The White House referred Blaze News to the DOJ for comment, which declined to comment when pressed by the Times. Bolton also reportedly declined to comment.

On his first day back in office, Trump revoked any security clearances Bolton might have held.

Trump noted that the publication of Bolton’s memoir “created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed” and “undermined the ability of future presidents to request and obtain candid advice on matters of national security from their staff.”

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​John bolton, Classified documents, Classified, Bolton, National security, Fbi, Leak, Investigation, Abbe lowell, Crime, Criminal, Politics 

Jan Fletcher, 78, was alone during the day recently when her home surveillance camera captured a young male getting off his bike, walking up her driveway, and approaching her on the porch of her south Louisville home, WLKY-TV reported.

The male asks Fletcher, “Is somebody in there? I don’t want to wake them. Is somebody in there?”

Fletcher responds, “Yeah. Why?”

‘She didn’t deserve that.’

The station said the male was asking for directions to a well-known neighborhood park. But then he got all the way on the porch, walked behind Fletcher, and acted as though he was dusting something off her rear end.

But the situation grew scarier.

RELATED: Young girls escape molester by kicking him in the groin at Fourth of July celebration, police say

WLKY said the male repeatedly and violently groped Fletcher until she was able to stop him.

“I was so mad that it happened,” Fletcher recalled to the station during an on-camera interview. “I was thinking, ‘What could I have done different?’ But I don’t know what I could have done differently.”

Her granddaughter Jessica Powell-Page was understandably horrified and told WLKY that “she didn’t deserve that” and that the incident was “unacceptable.”

Louisville police told the station they’re investigating the incident but haven’t yet identified the male.

Despite the disturbing encounter, Fletcher noted to WLKY that she’s lived in her neighborhood for 55 years and has felt safe — and that she’s not going anywhere.

“I’ve been asked if I’m afraid to sit here on my porch, and I’m not,” she noted to the station defiantly. “I want him to know you’re not scaring me. Absolutely not. So every day that it’s nice weather, I will be on my porch.”

Louisville police told WLKY that “the elderly are often the victims of scams, harassment, and home invasion, which often start with suspicious questions at the door.” Police also offered the following tips, the station said:

Trust your instincts. If a person or situation makes you feel uneasy, trust your gut feeling. Acknowledge the potential threat and take action to stay safe.
Take note of your surroundings. Pay attention to potential hiding spots for an attacker, such as alleys, doorways, large bushes, or between parked vans. When walking past these areas, give them a wide berth.
Look for warning signs. Stay alert for suspicious behaviors, like someone following you on foot or in a vehicle. If you notice this, change directions, cross the street, or enter a business to signal that you have noticed them.

WLKY added that those with information regarding the incident can offer anonymous tips at 502-574-5673.

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​Sexual assault, Caught on video, Grandmother, Front porch, Louisville, Kentucky, Suspect at large, Groped, Assault, Crime 

Our lives revolve around technology these days, whether we like it or not. Even if we don’t work in a tech-y field or care much at all about the latest technological developments coming out of Silicon Valley, our lives are shaped by digital advancement.

Take the way we communicate. It’s so different from when I was a kid. Video calling? That was something futuristic. Unheard of. Now my kids talk to their grandparents on FaceTime every day.

If the internet was a one-way street, the Zoomers wouldn’t be much different from us. If it was basically super-TV, their emotional calibration would be recognizable.

Email. I didn’t have one until a couple of years into high school. I remember when we had dial-up. No, I remember when we got dial-up! My parents had one email address, and they checked it every week or so.

Of course, we can’t forget texting. We carry on conversations with 10 different people all over the country. Or maybe all over the world! We also have social media. What is that? Imagine telling yourself about X and Instagram in 1992. What a world this is.

Zooming ahead

The profound impacts of technology are so great, and we are constantly in the midst of it. I’m not sure there’s enough time to stop and really realize how it’s changed both our world and us. It’s changed us all, not exactly for the better. But I think it’s changed some more than others, and I think it’s changed Generation Z (the Zoomers) the most.

It’s hard to get my head around the Zoomers. I know them, I see them, I hear them, but I can’t quite understand them. There’s something profoundly different about them, beyond the usual generational gaps: the music, the language, the clothing, the general aesthetic sensibilities. It’s something deeper in the way they think and, most importantly, feel.

All generations have a spirit that isn’t so easily understood from the outside. It’s the logic of the time in which they were brought up, the essence of the world at that moment in history. Sometimes it’s easy to pinpoint direct connections between economic realities, global conflicts, collective anxieties, broad societal changes, and how a generation is, for lack of a better word.

The Zoomers have that too, of course. It explains some of who they are, but not all. At a deeper level, the real difference between the Zoomers and the rest of us is technology — and how they and their feelings were shaped by technology.

Emotional calibration

The emotional calibration of the Zoomers is different from ours. All of us — Boomers, Millennials, Gen X’ers, and any of the Greatest Generation that are still alive — were emotionally calibrated offline. Even if we have since embraced the technological world with open arms, even if we are just as plugged in as the Zoomers are today, the way we emotionally relate to others and the world as a whole was shaped offline.

If the internet was a one-way street, the Zoomers wouldn’t be much different from us. If it was basically super-TV, their emotional calibration would be recognizable. They might have 50,000 channels to watch instead of 35; they might have digital access to every book in the world rather than going down to the library just to brow a few thousand old titles; but our difference would be merely a matter of degree.

8 billion ways to cry

But the internet is not super-TV. It isn’t a one-way street. It’s not even a two-way street; it’s an 8-billion-way street. It’s another world, and it’s the world they grew up in. The real thing that altered the emotional calibration of the Zoomers was extremely early exposure to social media, comment sections, algorithms, and pervasive anonymous interaction.

It’s profound, fascinating, and sad. I don’t think I can begin to accurately explore what all the implications are. I don’t think I can actually explain it, really. I don’t think any of us can. Only Zoomers can do it, but they would also need to be self-aware of all these facts, historically literate, emotionally robust, psychologically fearless, and with a real, strong sense of the worlds before them and what they actually were. That’s a tall order for any generation.

RELATED: Cut the Zoomers some slack

Blaze News Illustratiion

Different cement

I don’t know how to explain all the ways the Zoomer’s emotional calibration is different. But I can feel it, and you can too. And I know the reason. It’s the technology. The social aspect of the internet shaped a different of kind of emotional base for them.

Can it be reversed? I don’t think so. I think they will forever be different from us. Even when they get older and enter more mature seasons of life, they will remain different. The foundation was poured with different cement.

This is why they are, somewhere deep down, something of an enigma to the rest of us. We were raised in an embodied world. The Zoomers were raised in a disembodied one.

​Menswear, Fatherhood, Family life, Generation z, Zoomers, Social media, Tech, The root of the matter 

On Thursday, August 21, at 4:30 p.m., my wife, my youngest daughter, and I stood in the soft light of an overcast day at Villanova University’s welcome Mass. She had earned the right to call herself a freshman. The class of 2029 also carries a distinction: the first freshman class to attend the alma mater of a pope.

Pride did not fully prepare us for what came next.

Everything is an education. Courage, the first of the virtues, does not mean reckless bravado. I learned something about it.

At 4:34 p.m., phones around us buzzed with a NOVA Alert:

ACTIVE SHOOTER Incident Warning
ACTIVE SHOOTER on VU campus. Move to secure location.
Lock/Barricade doors. More info to follow.

My daughter showed my wife the text. As they puzzled over it, the crowd shifted. Chairs toppled with a sound like rain. I briefly imagined a cloudburst pushing people indoors.

The murmur swelled into a surge. People dove to the ground. I had not yet seen the alert. Gunfire? I heard none. A vehicle attack? Lightning? A tornado? A wild animal?

Ancient Greeks saw their gods and the gods of their enemies amid the terror of battlefields. In that instant, the mind supplied its own agents of terror in the convulsing crowd at Villanova.

“Dad, run!” my daughter shouted. She and my wife had already bolted. I jogged after them, but the walkways churned like rapids and they disappeared in the current. I moved into the open at Connelly Plaza to search. Moments later, my daughter called from inside the Connelly Center, urging me to stop standing outside and get to cover. I geolocated my wife’s phone; it registered inside Dougherty Hall.

A heavily armed officer and several others strode past, asking for the library. I pointed as best I could. Someone inside Dougherty waved me in with insistence.

Inside, I found my wife’s purse and phone. Some thoughtful person had picked it up and brought it in. She soon called from a stranger’s phone to say she had reached the Ithan parking garage a little further off. I took up a post with four or five other dads at the glass entrance to Dougherty and waited for the all-clear. It came an hour and a half later.

Everything is an education. Courage, the first of the virtues, does not mean reckless bravado. I learned something about it that afternoon.

Panic spreads faster than any bullet. Faces around me looked as if they had witnessed a threat firsthand. The truth is that most had only read the alert and then seen fear and panic in other people’s faces. That fear became the source of multiplying bad information.

RELATED: America can’t survive on lies and make-believe morality

invincible_bulldog via iStock/Getty Images

“Tune our hearts to brave music,” St. Augustine prayed. Villanova’s staff did exactly that. They acted with calm and helped people reach safety. Even so, the hoaxer exposed vulnerabilities. If you have not witnessed immediate danger, move safely and deliberately to a secure place. Don’t fuel the stampede.

Augustine may have also said, “Hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” The hoaxing continued that weekend — one call to the University of South Carolina, another to Villanova. The intent is obvious: inflict physical and psychological harm by weaponizing the consensus response — run and shelter in place.

The threat, paradoxically, comes from hijacking the security system by crying wolf. The remedy must make that hijacking harder, verify and communicate information faster, and reduce harm when the system gets abused. That requires careful thinking about methods and messages — and about courage.

Courage steadies the hands that send the alerts, guides parents and students to act with discipline, and keeps us from trampling one another in a fog of rumor. I watched it in real time from Dougherty Hall. It will be needed again.

​Opinion & analysis, Courage, Virtue, Fear, St. augustine of hippo, Villanova, Pope leo xiv, University, Hoax, False alarm, Mass shooting, Panic, Safety, Mob mentality, Mass hysteria, Crowds, Misinformation, Malinformation