ENEMIES LIST: The FBI raids yesterday on the home and office of President Trump’s first-term national security adviser John Bolton have the distinct odor of political retribution.

  Both FBI director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi tweeted messages as the raids were happening, a breach of ethical conduct. Bondi said, “America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always.”

  Deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino, reposted Patel, saying, “Public corruption will not be tolerated.”

  Trump claimed to know nothing about it, although he once said Bolton should be sent to jail for publishing the book. “He’s not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy,” President Trump told reporters “We’re going to find out.” 

  The searches appear to have been related to Bolton’s possession and use of top secret materials for his book, “The Room Where it Happened,” published in June 2020, which portrayed Trump as an ignorant  leader with authoritarian instincts. It was published only after the administration performed a studious review of whether it contained classified information.

  The first Trump administration tried to block publication, claiming Bolton had breached his nondisclosure agreement.

  However, the NY Post reports that the investigation is really about Bolton sending classified documents to his wife and daughter by private email while he worked in the White House. If that’s the case, you have to wonder why agents removed boxes from Bolton’s home.

  Bolton in his years since serving with Trump has become a vocal critic of the President and his administration with frequent appearances on CNN.

  He told the Associated Press in January, “Anybody who ever disagrees with Trump has to worry about retribution. It’s a pretty long list.”

SEE NO EVIL: Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned procurer for the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, told a government interviewer that she never saw Donald Trump do anything  improper or illegal during his long friendship with Epstein, according to transcripts released to Congress yesterday. She said, “I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way.”

  Maxwell also said Epstein didn’t have a client list and she did not implicate anyone by name in having sex with underage girls. Despite the testimony of many women, Maxwell said, “I never, ever saw any man doing something inappropriate with a woman of any age. I never saw inappropriate habits.”

  Maxwell has been angling for a reduction in her 20-year sentence. She told interrogator Todd Blanche; “President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him.”

FIRED: The Pentagon fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency just  weeks after the DIA delivered a  preliminary report contradicting President Trump’s claim that the US bombing “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear development sites. 

  From crime to labor statistics and bomb damage assessment, your job is in danger if you disagree with President Trump’s pre-conceived truth. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse is the second top military intelligence official removed since Trump returned to office.

  Trump is also threatening to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board that has stonewalled his demands for lower interest rates. The President is accusing her of lying on mortgage applications, but Cook says she will produce proof that it’s not true.

  “I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign,” Trump told reporters. He’s trying to stack the Fed board with loyalists who would do what he says.

Econ 101: Just by coincidence, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Trump’s primary target at the Fed, hinted yesterday that the Fed might lower interest rates next month, sending stocks soaring.

  In the financial gobbledygook of Fed chairs, Powell said, “the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance.”  Investors who speak fluent gobbledygook translated that to “lower interest rates.”

INTEL INSIDE: The troubled Intel chip maker has agreed to sell a 10 percent stake to the federal government. President Trump derided President Biden for giving Intel bailout money without getting anything in return. Trump never gives anything away.

   The US would invest $8.9 billion in Intel stock on top of $2.2 billion that the government paid the company under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act,

FOOD FIGHT: A United Nations backed group of experts has found that a half million residents of Gaza are at risk of starvation and hundreds of thousands more are at risk of severe food shortages … famine.

  Children are affected the worst and pictures of skeletal infants have spread around the world. Some bloggers claim the images are fake even while Israel has made denial of food an instrument of war.

  The US has largely remained silent but US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee posted online that “Tons of food has gone into Gaza but Hamas savages stole it, ate lots of it to become corpulent.” That doesn’t mean children are not starving.

DENIED: Lyle Menendez, 57, the second of the infamous parent-murdering Menendez brothers, was denied parole yesterday after an 11-hour hearing. His brother Erik, 54, was denied on Thursday.

  Lyle was praised for showing “potential for change” but faulted for persistent “antisocial personality traits.” Both brothers were called out for breaking prison rules, including illegally using cellphones.

  The brothers killed their Beverly Hills parents in 1989 claiming they were victims of sexual abuse and feared their lives were in danger. 

THE SPIN RACK: A tour bus returning to New York City from Niagara Falls with 54 people on board rolled over yesterday on the NY State Thruway east of Buffalo, killing five passengers and injuring others. Investigators say the driver became distracted, swerved, and overcorrected. — 

BELOW THE FOLD:  A center-left think tank yesterday released a list of 45 words and phrases that Democrats should avoid to stop sounding like “enforcers of wokeness.” 

  The so-called “blue blacklist” includes: “Privilege,” “Othering,” “Triggering,” “Safe space” “Body shaming,”  “microaggression,” “incarcerated person,” “cultural appropriation,” “the unhoused,” “person who immigrated,” and our favorite linguistic absurdity, “birthing person.” 

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