John Bolton, then national security adviser, spoke to the media outside the White House in 2019. The FBI raided Bolton’s home Friday looking for classified information. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI. | License Photo
The FBI raided the home of former national security adviser John Bolton Friday morning at the order of FBI Director Kash Patel.
The raid of Bolton’s Bethesda, Md., home, reported by the New York Post, CNN and NBC News, was authorized by a court. It was part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records,” a source confirmed to NBC News.
“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Patel posted on X at 7:03 a.m. EDT Friday, around the time the raid started.
CNN reported it saw FBI personnel at Bolton’s house. They were seen speaking to a person on the porch, and four to six agents were seen going inside. Some of the agents took bags out of vehicles to bring inside, but nothing was seen coming out of the home.
Bolton told CNN he was unaware of the FBI activity and was looking into it further.
Bolton was the national security adviser under President Donald Trump in his first administration, and he was ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush. He published a book in 2020, The Room Where It Happened, which Trump tried to prevent from being published. Trump claimed that Bolton revealed classified information and that Bolton broke a non-disclosure agreement, but he was unsuccessful in preventing publication.
In Bolton’s book, he claimed Trump was under-informed on foreign policy and obsessed with shaping his media legacy. The book also reported that Trump asked the leaders of Ukraine and China to help him win the 2020 election.
The book included material that was cleared for publication by career officials at the White House, but Trump political appointees tried to overturn that approval.
Since then, Trump and Bolton have been at odds. Trump has repeatedly gone after Bolton while in office, including saying this month that the media was “constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton,” CNN reported.
Bolton has been a fierce critic of the Trump administration, regularly appearing on TV denouncing many of Trump’s decisions.
The president terminated Bolton’s Secret Service detail within hours of starting his second term in January, as he has for many of his perceived enemies and political opponents.
