by Steve Benen | Jun 4, 2026 | Crime & Courts, Criminal Justice, Maddowblog, News, Politics
At an Oval Office event on Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump took some time to claim that restaurants in Washington, D.C., are “reopening,” thanks to his role in creating a “vibrant” capital. The president made similar claims at a White House Cabinet meeting last week, patting himself on the back, insisting that “everyone’s going out to dinner,” in large part because he positioned National Guard troops to keep local residents safe.
The rhetoric was part of a pattern that began last summer when the Republican deployed Guard troops to D.C. streets, followed immediately by claims of extraordinary success. “I’ve made Washington, D.C., just an incredible place in literally four days,” he boasted during a Fox News appearance in August. The comments came the day after the president wrote on his social media platform, “People are flocking to D.C. again,” pointing to a trend he apparently made up.
In the weeks and months that followed, polls showed broad public skepticism about Guard troops patrolling civilian streets, but Trump nevertheless repeatedly boasted that, thanks to his Guard deployments, lawbreaking was a thing of the past in the nation’s capital. Even during his State of the Union address, delivered in February, the president assured the public that “we have almost no crime anymore” in Washington.
Though I wish that were true, there’s evidence to the contrary. NPR reported:
President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. has reduced petty property crimes, but has had little to no effect on violent crime, despite the high cost to taxpayers, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Niskanen Center.
The study’s findings were published just weeks after
by Steve Benen | Jun 4, 2026 | Crime & Courts, Criminal Justice, Maddowblog, News, Politics
Donald Trump has made no effort to hide his contempt for John Bolton, who served as the president’s White House national security adviser in his first term, and his desire to see Bolton punished for becoming a Trump critic.
With this in mind, the president will likely be thrilled with the latest developments in Bolton’s criminal case: MS NOW’s Ken Dilianian and Carol Leonnig report, citing two people familiar with the matter, that Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information contained in a private diary entry.
The plea deal calls for up to 60 months in jail and a $2.25 million fine, according to the sources. It would resolve a massive indictment that threatened Bolton with millions of dollars in legal fees and decades in prison. CNN was first to report on the plea deal.
The apparent resolution of the Bolton case appears to be very similar to what happened with former CIA Director and retired Gen. David Petraeus, who also pleaded guilty in 2015 to a single count of retaining classified information for a diary that was shown to a co-author, reported MS NOW’s Dilanian and Leonnig.
The difference, however, is that Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, while Bolton appears poised to admit to a felony.
The path to this point has been rocky and circuitous. Bolton, after having served at the president’s side for a year and a half, warned the public during the 2024 election cycle that Trump was “unfit to be president.” The Republican responded with an endless stream of insults and complaints about his former aide.
At one point, Trump even published an item
by Steve Benen | Jun 3, 2026 | Crime & Courts, Criminal Justice, Maddowblog, News, Politics
Two weeks after Election Day 2024, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama assured the public that Donald Trump wouldn’t choose “a criminal” to serve in any key positions. Soon after, the president (himself a convicted felon) started adding politically aligned ex-cons to his administrative team.
But of particular interest are the Jan. 6 rioters who’ve been hired by the Republican administration, despite — or quite possibly, because of — the role they played in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Last summer, for example, Trump’s Justice Department hired Jared Wise, a former FBI agent who not only participated in the Jan. 6 riot, he was also filmed urging his fellow insurrectionists to “kill” police officers. (Though Wise was criminally charged, federal prosecutors didn’t have time to proceed with the case before Trump started handing out pardons to rioters, including violent felons who clashed with police officers.)
Wise parted ways with the administration a couple of months ago, but as it turns out, he wasn’t the only Jan. 6 rioter to get a job on Team Trump. The Washington Post reported:
A convicted Jan. 6 rioter who later said that he regretted his participation in the U.S. Capitol attack has been hired by the Trump administration to work inside a Pentagon office that manages highly classified military operations, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The appointment of Elias Irizarry, who was 19 at the time of the riot in 2021, to a post in the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict office has raised alarm internally among staff who question how anyone convicted in the assault on American democracy could be trusted
