On August 22, 2025, FBI agents raided the home of John Bolton, national security advisor during the first Trump administration and, later, trenchant critic of his former boss. The feds were apparently on a mission to protect classified documents, the same mission the FBI claimed to be carrying out when they raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on an August day three years before.

After the August 2025 raid on Bolton, the FBI director, Kash Patel, took to social media to declare that “nobody is above the law.” This phrase is familiar from the long years of lawfare against Trump and his associates, as those going after the Trump team, and those cheering them on, frequently pontificated that the law applies to everyone, irrespective of political power. It was the same phrase, in fact, that Bolton used when Trump’s home was raided in 2022.

But for all this talk about the law, what is really going on with Washington and legality?

Never mind that Patel’s backhanded paean to the rule of law came on the same day that the Department of Justice, Patel’s employer, was scheduled to give Congress a batch of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, pedophile, Deep State asset, and former Trump crony. Bolton’s alleged crimes are related to documents. Meanwhile, Trump, the Clintons, and dozens of other big players connected to both major political parties are still walking around free despite being neck-deep in the Epstein saga. “Nobody is above the law” is a blatant lie. Almost everyone who joined Epstein on his baleful island is untouchable.

But that is not the worst insult to the law. The lowlifes in high office with whom Epstein associated will probably never face justice in this life for their sickening crimes. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s fellow sex trafficker, is currently trying to wheedle a pardon out of the president, when, by rights, both of them and many others besides should be rotting in the same prison cell. All of that is beside the point, though. The much more pervasive criminality is Washington itself. Patel used Bolton as a distraction from Epstein, but the Epstein business is, in many ways, a distraction from Bolton. What some creeps did in the Caribbean is abominable. What virtually everyone in Washington does on a daily basis, in broad daylight, is even worse.

John Bolton’s crimes involving the handling of pieces of paper will surely be hashed out and litigated in the months and years to come. Bolton may even go to prison, which would be a welcome development. But Bolton’s sinning has almost nothing to do with paperwork. Bolton is a bloodthirsty psychopath, a killer prolific and bold. He is, however, thoroughly unremarkable in Washington. Almost everyone in the federal government is at least his equal in disposition. Bolton has pushed for wanton violence against North Korea, Iran, Syria, Russia, and many other places which he has decided need to be carpet-bombed. Bolton and Trump do not see eye to eye on much anymore, but they, and just about everyone else in Washington, are in enthusiastic agreement that killing people in foreign countries is a righteous exercise of American power.

Every living president, and every dead president going back to the first one (see here), has acted with utter impunity against non-American states. All of those presidents had advisors, influencers, hangers-on. In today’s Washington, the killing of foreigners is as routine as is the taking of cash from lobbying groups. Republican, Democrat, or Independent — not a single person in Washington has ever stood trial for their real criminality, for the lawlessness of the American Empire and its leaders’ arrogated ability to kill at will, at random even, without the slightest personal consequence.

Everybody in Washington is above the law. Everyone does exactly as he or she pleases. Victoria Nuland organized a coup d’etat in Ukraine. Marco Rubio is plotting to invade Venezuela. Barack Obama was the Angel of Death via drone strike. George Bush turned the Middle East into a sea of blood and fire. Dick Cheney egged him on. Joe Biden funded the genocide in Gaza. Donald Trump continued the proxy starvation campaign. Ted Cruz, Chuck Schumer, Lindsey Graham, Hillary Clinton — squealing with glee when Washington blows up foreigners is a bipartisan pastime. Crying for more blood, more destruction, is all in a day’s work for the Washington crowd. Not one hour in a courtroom for any of these people for their heinous offenses. Not a single day in prison for even the lowest ranking of the Washington mass murder gang.

John Bolton has breathed hatred and massacre for decades, spanning many administrations and congressional changes of power. He is surrounded by thousands of other psychopaths in Washington. Bolton’s day of reckoning, at least so far, was about a few pieces of paper. Nobody, including Bolton, will ever face justice for much worse than procedural offenses.

Everybody in Washington is above the law. Without exception. Everybody.