Days after the early-morning raid at the home of President Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, it remains unclear what kind of classified materials the FBI recovered from its search, and what kind of charges, if any, the bureau will bring against the vocal Trump critic.
On Friday morning, FBI agents, under the direction of its director, Kash Patel, appeared at the doorstep of Mr. Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland home in what was described as a resumption of a “national security probe” launched in 2020 after the publication of Mr. Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” but later dropped after Mr. Trump left office. The revived probe centers on whether Mr. Bolton sent classified materials to his wife and daughter from White House computer shortly before he was fired from the White House in 2019, according to published reports (Mr. Bolton claims he resigned).
“This is a national security case that was closed by the Biden administration. Kash reopened it, and Kash reignited it,” an FBI official told the Sun.
Mr. Trump denied any involvement in Friday’s raid, saying, “I purposefully don’t really want to get involved in it.”
Mr. Bolton, who served as national security advisor to Mr. Trump in 2018 and 2019, has recently rankled his former boss with dismissive comments about the president’s August 15 meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Mr. Bolton said he suspected Mr. Putin flattered Mr. Trump and told him he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.
“As long as Putin is advancing on the battlefield, even if it’s 3 yards in a cloud of dust, he’s not going to give up anything if he can get away with it,” he told CNN. “And I think here, I think the White House has lowered expectations precisely for the reason that it’s too complicated to handle here.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, the Vice President, J.D. Vance, defended the FBI’s investigation and denied it was a retributive act by Mr. Trump.
“Classified documents are certainly part of it. But I think that there’s a broad concern about Ambassador Bolton. They’re going to look into it,” Mr. Vance told “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “If there is a crime here, of course, Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court,” he added.
Senator Adam Schiff – a California Democrat and devoted foe of Mr. Trump who himself is being investigated by the Justice Department for mortgage fraud – said the raid on Mr. Bolton’s home was “clearly retribution.”
“What the president is trying to do here is very systemic and systematic, and that is anyone who stands up to the president — anyone who criticizes the president, anyone who says anything adverse to the president’s interests — gets the full weight of the federal government brought down on them,” Mr. Schiff told “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
In his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where it Happened,” Mr. Bolton did not hold back criticism of Mr. Trump’s handling of foreign policy during his first administration, writing in his foreword that Mr. Trump “is unfit to be President.”
The book was a number one New York Times bestseller and was one of the most successful Trump tell-alls, selling 780,000 copies in its first week alone. In the book, Mr. Bolton was withering about Mr. Trump, describing the president as a gullible figure easily manipulated with flattery by foreign leaders.
The book, as well as Mr. Bolton’s television appearances promoting it, enraged Mr. Trump.
More recently, Mr. Bolton has appeared on CNN to criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The first Trump White House began fighting with Mr. Bolton in 2020, prior to the publication of his book. Mr. Bolton argued that he’d been advised verbally by the relevant National Security Council official that his book did not contain classified information. The White House, demanding another round of review, sued to block the book’s publication nevertheless, and a federal judge allowed the book to be published. The White House appealed and the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into Mr. Bolton’s use of classified material – the lawsuit and the criminal probe were dropped by the Biden Administration. The criminal investigation has now come back to life.
Mr. Bolton later became the target of an assassination plot orchestrated by Iran, according to American intelligence officials. Mr. Trump pulled Mr. Bolton’s Secret Service detail — which he’d retained after he left government due to the death threats — when he returned to power in 2025. Mr. Trump said Mr. Bolton could afford his own security.
On Saturday, another former Trump administration official said he and his wife “expect” to be the target of a similar house raid by the FBI.
“Yeah, we expect it. I mean, really, we expect it,” a former Department of Homeland Security deputy chief of staff, Miles Taylor, told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart on Saturday.
“I mean when my wife and I woke up and saw the news, she basically said to me, ‘It’s coming,’” he added.
Mr. Taylor, while he was in government service, wrote a widely-read New York Times opinion piece as “Anonymous,” and stated that senior level Trump Administration officials were actively working to obstruct the president’s policies. This enraged Mr. Trump. Upon his return to power, he signed an executive order stripping Mr. Taylor of his security clearance and ordering an investigation into whether he’d wrongfully disseminated classified material.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
