United States

FBI blitz against Bolton and revised colleges, Trump on the attack heading into mid-term vote

FBI searches Bolton House, Trump critic and former national security ally. Meanwhile, 'gerrymandering' is launched in Texas. Democrats respond in California led by Governor Newsom

23 August 2025

FBI agents carry boxes from former National Security Advisor John Bolton's office in Washington, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

2' min read

The midterm elections are approaching and Donald Trump is sharpening his nails. In the space of two days, the FBI searched the home and office of John Bolton, the president's former national security adviser and now opponent, while the Texas House approved a new electoral map at the tycoon's urging. Who meanwhile, on social media, is relaunching his crusade against postal voting, promising to cancel it by 2026, coinciding with the vote.

Bolton, a Republican hawk, was ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush and Trump's national security advisor from 2018 to 2019. A muscular approach, his: military pressure and scepticism towards multilateral ties. With the tycoon, however, the relationship was short-lived. Bolton wanted a hard line against Iran and North Korea; the president pursued summits with Kim Jong-un and openings to Moscow.

The rift exploded in 2020 with the publication by the former advisor of a memoir, full of backstory, recounting his days in the White House as a whirlwind of chaos and electoral calculations. Since then, he has become one of the tycoon's fiercest critics, especially on Ukraine. In his book and subsequent interviews, he accused him of treating foreign policy as a real estate deal, based on personal relationships and self-promotion. The investigation into the classified documents, opened in 2020 and shelved by Joe Biden, was reactivated in February with the arrival of Kash Patel as head of the FBI, one of Trump's loyalists. "No one is above the law," his tweet at the time of the raid.

The president, in recent months, has torpedoed inspectors general, revoked security clearance from dozens of lawyers linked to Russiagate, indicted a judge and a congresswoman. He has commissioned the Washington police, placed the New York attorney general under investigation and demanded the resignation of a member of the Federal Reserve.

Two days before the raid - about which Trump said he knew nothing, while calling Bolton a 'thug, unintelligent and unpatriotic' - another game was being played in Texas. The House of Representatives approved a new electoral map that guarantees five more seats to Republicans. It is gerrymandering, the practice by which electoral colleges are drawn to favour one party at the expense of others. An extraordinary revision, mid-decade, pushed by Trump to armour his majority in Congress.

Democrats attempted to boycott the session by leaving the chamber, but on their return they were guarded by police to prevent further escapes. After eight hours of debate, the map passed.

The Dem reaction came from California. Governor Gavin Newsom backed a plan that creates five seats for his party, breaking with the independent commission system. 'We will fight fire with fire,' he declared.

Trump, meanwhile, relaunched his crusade against postal voting and electronic machines, described as 'manipulable'. A proposal difficult to implement without consensus in Congress and in the individual states, but effective as a message. Attacking postal voting means hitting the Democratic electorate in particular, above all young people and citizens abroad. It is the same logic that animates the Texas redistricting: narrowing the field before the game begins. Because today, in the United States, power is exercised by rewriting the rules.