FBI searches home of Trump adviser turned critic John Bolton

FBI agents on Friday searched the Washington-area home and office of former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton as part of an investigation into whether he illegally possessed or shared classified information, according to multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the matter.

Those officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the probe, said the investigation focused on allegations the Justice Department previously pursued during President Donald Trump’s first term that Bolton divulged classified government material in his 2020 book. Another person familiar with the current inquiry said its scope extended beyond that long-dormant probe to include other, more long-running accusations that Bolton had leaked sensitive materials.

Bolton, a veteran diplomat and security expert who has more recently emerged as one of the president’s fiercest critics, was not at home at the time and has not been charged with a crime, the people familiar said. He and his attorney did not return calls seeking comment.

Trump, speaking to reporters in Washington, said he had no prior knowledge of the investigation into Bolton or the search warrants agents executed Friday.

“I saw it on television this morning. I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real, sort of a lowlife,” Trump said, wearing a hat that read “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING.” He added later the search could reveal that Bolton is “a very unpatriotic guy.”

The investigation makes Bolton the latest of Trump’s political enemies to find themselves targeted by a Justice Department probe. In recent months, federal investigators have launched criminal investigations into Trump critics including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California), former FBI director James B. Comey and ex-CIA director John Brennan.

But the FBI’s search Friday suggested that the bureau’s probe of Bolton may already be at a more advanced stage. To obtain a search warrant, a federal magistrate judge must agree that agents have probable cause to believe a crime occurred and that the locations searched could contain evidence of wrongdoing.

Outside Bolton’s home in Montgomery County, Maryland, early Friday, police cars with flashing lights blocked off the street leading to the residence. Agents were on scene for more than an hour. A crowd of TV cameras and protesters carrying signs reading “Trump uses FBI for Vengeance” quickly gathered.

Neighbor Gerald Rogell, an 83-year-old retired physician who described Bolton as “not his favorite person in the neighborhood,” questioned whether the ongoing search was an effort to use law enforcement in service of one of the president’s long-standing grudges.

“I really don’t like to see the Department of Justice weaponized for personal reasons,” Rogell said.

Later in the morning, a handful of agents with FBI insignia were seen entering the downtown Washington office building on M Street where Bolton rents space. They emerged hours later, with at least one agent carrying a cardboard box, and did not respond to questions from reporters.

Bolton left the building in a black SUV moments afterward and arrived at his home roughly an hour later. He did not speak to reporters gathered outside.

In a statement, an FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the searches, saying only that the bureau had been conducting “court authorized activity in the area” and “there is no threat to public safety” at this time.

Justice Department officials did not return requests for comment. However, several top officials appeared to cryptically reference the FBI search on social media.

“No one is above the law. FBI agents on a mission,” FBI director Kash Patel wrote in a post on X while agents were still on the scene.

Attorney General Pam Bondi added: “America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always.”

Vice President JD Vance in an interview set to air Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” acknowledged the existence of the investigation – a breach of long-standing norms in which officials, especially at the White House, keep silent about ongoing probes to avoid the appearance of politics influencing Justice Department activities.

“We’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton,” Vance said. “I will say we’re going to let that investigation proceed.”

Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, worked in Trump’s first term as his third national security adviser. In 2020, administration officials sought to block publication of the White House memoir Bolton wrote chronicling his 17 months in the role, alleging it contained classified information.

The best-selling book, titled “The Room Where It Happened,” offered a withering portrait of Trump as an “erratic” and “stunningly uninformed” leader. In the weeks leading up to the book’s 2020 release, the Justice Department sued Bolton seeking to prevent its publication and recoup his $2 million advance.

Bolton denied the book contains classified information, cited his cooperation with a lengthy prepublication government review and added that he brought decades of experience working with secret material to the task.

“Ambassador Bolton emphatically rejects any claim that he acted improperly, let alone criminally, in connection with the publication of his book, and he will cooperate fully, as he has throughout, with any official inquiry into his conduct,” his attorney, Charles J. Cooper, said at the time.

A federal judge allowed the book to move forward but said in his ruling that he was “persuaded that defendant Bolton likely jeopardized national security interests by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement” signed upon taking his job with the Trump administration.

“Defendant Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in a June 2020 opinion. “He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability.”

After failing to halt the publication, the Justice Department under then-Attorney General William P. Barr opened a criminal investigation in late 2020 into whether Bolton could be prosecuted for disclosing classified information. That investigation was closed without charges in 2021 under President Joe Biden’s administration.

Trump himself was later charged with mishandling classified documents over papers he allegedly took to his Mar-a-Lago estate after the conclusion of his first term. That case was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Florida, who ruled the special counsel investigating the probe had been improperly appointed.

Since Trump’s return to the White House this year, the president revoked Bolton’s security clearances, along with those of dozens of other former intelligence officials. Trump also canceled Bolton’s security detail. And Bolton has continued to loudly criticize Trump’s foreign policy.

Asked earlier this month whether he was concerned the Trump administration was targeting him for retribution, Bolton told ABC News, “I think it is a retribution presidency.”

Following Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week over the ongoing war in Ukraine, Bolton told CNN he felt “Putin clearly won” and that “Trump achieved very little” and “looked tired.”

Even as agents descended on his home around 7 a.m. Friday, Bolton posted to X criticizing Trump’s engagement with Putin over Ukraine, saying, “Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress.” He did not mention the then-ongoing FBI raid, and it was unclear whether he’d previously scheduled that message for posting.

It was also unclear Friday what sensitive material the FBI believed Bolton still possessed. To secure a conviction for unlawful possession of classified documents, prosecutors must show such materials were kept willfully and not just accidentally.

David Aaron, a former counterintelligence prosecutor who now works in private practice, said the legal threshold to convince a judge to authorize a search warrant was relatively low.

“It’s one of the lower standards in criminal cases by design. The probable cause standard is designed to protect liberties but also to allow investigations,” he said. “The government has to provide enough facts to establish what the crime is and why there would be evidence in this location that the crime was committed.”

Trump told reporters he expected to be briefed on the investigation later by Bondi.

“What I tell Pam, and I tell the group: ‘I don’t want to know. … You have to do what you have to do. I don’t want to know about it,’ ” he said. He suggested, however, that he could have played a more active role in launching the investigation of Bolton if he wanted.

“I could be the one starting it,” he said. “I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel like it’s better that way.”

Later in the day, Trump continued to discuss the Bolton search and referenced his own experience when agents raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022.

“They went through everything they could, including my young son’s room and my wife’s area. They went through her drawers, as the expression goes,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office.

“So I know the feeling,” he said. “It’s not a good feeling.”