Vice President J.D. Vance just detroyed the narrative being pushed by the political left about the recent Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raid on ormer national security advisor John Bolton. 

The left's narrative, of course, is that President Donald Trump and his allies are targeting Bolton in an act of retribution.

According to Breitbart News, however, Vance, during a recent interview, destroyed this idea.

Kristen Welker: “Ambassador Bolton is a frequent critic of President Trump. He’s also on Kash Patel’s enemies list… Is Ambassador Bolton being targeted because he is a critic of President Trump?”

Vice President Vance: “No, not at all. In fact, if we were trying to do that, we… pic.twitter.com/WMjbVFuCGe

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) August 22, 2025

The narrative

Let's start by taking a quick look at the narrative being pushed by members of the political left.

A case in point comes from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Here is a public statement that he just released:

John Bolton and I have nothing in common politically. But last time I heard, in America, people are allowed to criticize the President of the United States without the FBI showing up on their doorstep. Just another step in Trump’s march toward authoritarianism.

Leftist media outlets are following suit.

The Hill, for example, just published an article, titled, "Bolton search raises specter of Trump retribution." It begins:

The search of former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton’s home and office is raising questions about whether the White House is flexing its law enforcement muscle to go after a frequent critic.

The question is whether this is what is actually going on here, or whether the Democrats are just trying to use every possible opportunity to undermine Trump's presidency.

Vance's response

During a recent appearance on NBC, Vance was asked whether or not the Trump administration is pursuing retribution here against Bolton.

The vice president replied:

No, not at all. And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy-nilly like the Biden administration DOJ did, prosecutions that later got thrown out in court. If we bring a case, and of course we haven’t done that yet, the Department of Justice has not done that yet — we are investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law. We’re going to be careful about that, we’re going be deliberate about that because we don’t think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations and that’s what we’re doing.

Vance was pressed a bit further on the subject, with the host claiming that "a lot of people have already looked at this and said this looks a lot like retribution."

He replied:

Well, who has said it looks a lot like retribution, Kristen? A lot of people who tried to throw Donald Trump in prison for completely fake charges that were later thrown out by multiple different courts. I suspect that if the media and the American people let this case actually unfold, if they let the investigation unfold as it’s currently doing, they’re going to find out that what we’re doing is being very deliberate and being very driven by the national interest and by the law here, and that’s as it should be.

Indeed.