The architect of “money is speech” just got run over by the oligarchy he built
Updated essay for The GriftMatrix:
Every day I read the news and say to myself – “Wow. You can not make this shit up.”
John Bolton was recently indicted on 18 felony counts for mishandling classified information. He was the third Trump critic to get hit after James Comey and Letitia James. Pam Bondi announced it with a straight face: “No one is above the law.” The irony would be funny if it weren’t terrifying.
Trump’s comment when reporters told him in the Oval Office? “I think he’s a bad person. He’s a bad guy. Too bad, but that’s the way it goes.”
The indictment alleges Bolton sent over 1,000 pages of classified information – including Top Secret material – through his personal email to his wife and daughter. Iranian hackers apparently got into his AOL account in 2021 and now possess intelligence on “future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations.” FBI Director Kash Patel says this was about “meticulous work from dedicated career professionals.” Sure.
Bolton’s lawyer says the charges are recycled from an investigation that was “resolved years ago.” Bolton himself called it exactly what it is: Trump’s “retribution presidency” in action. He’s not wrong. But what makes the whole thing truly mindboggling is that Bolton’s career is basically a case study in being destroyed by your own scheme.
Back in 1973 – when he was still a buttoned-up Yale Law student with a bad haircut and too much confidence – he co-authored a report for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) arguing that campaign spending limits violated the First Amendment. In other words, money equals speech. It was the intellectual spark that ignited a half-century bonfire of campaign finance laws.
Bolton wasn’t just some research assistant. He was Ralph K. Winter Jr.‘s partner on that paper, and he’s spent decades bragging about it. In 2016, Bolton wrote that the paper’s theory that “money is speech” still “looks better than ever.” He was proud. The monograph was titled “Campaign Financing and Political Freedom,” and it argued that regulating campaign money was an attack on the First Amendment itself.
That paper became the foundation for Buckley v. Valeo in 1976. The Supreme Court struck down spending limits and decided that political expenditures weren’t corruption – they were “free expression.” That ruling cracked open the door. Citizens United kicked it off the hinges in 2010, unleashing unlimited corporate money and anonymous donor networks into American elections.
In the 2024 cycle alone, outside groups poured billions into federal races. And at the top of the pile sat Elon Musk, who threw over $290 million at pro-Trump efforts – making him the biggest single donor in the election. Most of it flowed through America PAC, the super PAC he created specifically to get Trump back in the White House. Perfectly legal, thanks to the framework Bolton helped build.
The same system that let billionaires buy influence also helped elect the man who would eventually turn the Justice Department into his personal revenge factory.
David Sirota’s book “Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America” connects the dots. Sirota traces the campaign finance deregulation movement back to the early 1970s, starting with Lewis Powell’s secret memo urging corporate America to invest in reshaping the courts and the law. Bolton’s 1973 paper was part of that wave – the intellectual ammunition that made it possible to argue corruption was constitutionally protected.
None of this was an accident. It was strategy – a 50-year project to legalize corruption and call it freedom.
Bolton once bragged that Buckley v. Valeo would “determine the future shape of American politics.” He was right. Without it, there’s no Citizens United, no Musk money pipeline, no Trump superstructure of billionaire-backed loyalty and payback.
The man who argued that limiting campaign spending was tyranny is now learning what happens when an oligarch-backed presidency decides you’re disposable. He wanted a world where money talks. Now it’s screaming.
Bolton’s indictment is both an example of authoritarianism and poetic justice. The architect of America’s legalized corruption just got crushed under his own blueprint.
As I said: You cannot make this shit up.
SOURCES
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-statements-regarding-indictment-former-national-security-advisor-john
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/16/nx-s1-5554306/john-bolton-indicted
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/john-bolton-indicted-trump-rcna236983
https://www.aei.org/society-and-culture/the-struggle-to-preserve-a-free-political-system/
https://www.aei.org/society-and-culture/from-the-archives-the-other-john-bolton/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-2024-election-spending-millions
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/10/28/david_sirota
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_John_Bolton