By the time FBI Director Kash Patel took office in February, the investigation into whether John Bolton mishandled classified information had been in the works for roughly three years.

President Donald Trump had long been calling for Bolton – and other perceived political enemies – to be prosecuted, and the Maryland US Attorney’s office had been quietly building a case that started during the Biden administration.

When Patel was briefed on Bolton and other sensitive investigations shortly after landing at the bureau, he was surprised at the amount of evidence gathered.

“Why isn’t this m*therf**ker ​ in jail yet?” Patel said after being briefed, sources familiar with the exchange told CNN.

Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser in 2018 and 2019, is now the third Trump critic to be indicted in the past month after the president implored Attorney General Pam Bondi in a social media post he thought was a private message: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”

Within days of that message urging Bondi to act, Comey was indicted on charges of lying to Congress. Soon after, New York Attorney General Letitia James was charged with bank fraud related to a mortgage in an indictment unveiled last week. But while Trump called in his post specifically for the prosecutions of Comey, James and California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, he never mentioned Bolton in his missive.

The cases against Comey and James were presented to a grand jury by Lindsey Halligan, an interim US attorney handpicked by Trump for the position after the previous US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was forced out amid pressure to bring the cases.

Halligan, Trump’s former personal lawyer who had no previous prosecutorial e