The FBI raided the home of Donald Trump’s former national security adviser turned critic John Bolton early on Friday morning and later also turned up at Bolton’s office.
The federal search of Bolton’s house in the Washington DC area was understood to be part of an investigation involving the handling of classified documents, the Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
A government source confirmed the raid to the Guardian, but did not disclose further details.
The FBI director, Kash Patel, posted a cryptic message on X on Friday morning, saying: “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.”
Bolton was not at his house in Bethesda, Maryland, when agents arrived but later in the morning he was seen standing in the lobby of the building in Washington DC where he keeps an office, and was talking to two people with FBI visible on their vests. Bolton’s wife Gretchen was seen leaving their home while agents were present.
Bolton, also formerly a US ambassador to the United Nations, fell out with Donald Trump during his first administration and was ousted from the post of national security adviser in 2019. He went on to write a political memoir that prompted an investigation and a government lawsuit over whether he had misused classified information, but those actions ultimately went nowhere.
Bolton and the US president have maintained a political feud ever since.
On Friday morning, Trump talked to reporters and said: “I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real sort of a lowlife. He’s not a smart guy. But he could be very unpatriotic. I’m going to find out.”
The president added that he did not know the raid was planned and he expected to be briefed by the justice department later. “I tell the group I don’t want to know, but just you have to do what you have to do. I don’t want to know about it,” he said.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, reposted Patel’s message, as did Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI. Bongino added: “Public corruption will not be tolerated.”
Chiming with the cryptic style of such comments, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, later posted: “America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always.”
No details have been released of any specific allegations underlying the federal court warrant that would have been needed to conduct such a search.
The raid began around 7am ET and was first reported by the New York Post. At that time Bolton, when reached by CNN, said he was not aware of the law enforcement activity, but he did not issue further comment or a statement.
Bolton served as Trump’s third national security adviser for 17 months and clashed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. The administration then unsuccessfully sought to block the publication of his memoir.
After a judge ruled, in June 2020, that the book could be published, Trump said Bolton “must pay a very big price for this, as others have before him”.
Bolton was not detained or charged with any crimes during the raid.
On his first day back in office this year, Trump, a Republican, revoked the security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Bolton was also among a trio of former Trump officials whose security details were canceled by Trump earlier this year.
Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened detailed his time as Trump’s national security adviser. In it, Bolton detailed what he described as impeachable conduct and accused Trump of asking China to help secure his re-election. Bolton depicted a president ignorant of basic geopolitical realities, including not understanding that Finland was an independent country. The book became a bestseller despite Trump’s attempts to ban its publication.
In recent days Bolton has been critical of Trump’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war. After a Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska failed to yield progress on ending the war, Bolton wrote on social media: “It’s clear that Putin got to Trump, most likely convincing him away from Zelensky non-negotiables like security guarantees.”
On Thursday he criticized Trump again, writing: “Putin’s KGB training and flattery campaign is working Trump over.”
Meghan Hays, who was a White House special adviser to Joe Biden, told CNN in an interview that the raid “seems extremely political, extremely petty”, and that it smacked of “pure revenge” on the part of Trump and was a “poor use of FBI resources”.
Roger Stone, a longtime political operative who was prosecuted during the Russia investigation and later pardoned by Trump, posted on social media:
“Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 o’clock in the morning?”
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat representing Illinois, said in an interview on CNN that he thought the Bolton raid was designed as a distraction from the simmering saga of files from the federal investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who moved in high-level, bipartisan political circles.
Krishnamoorthi sits on the House oversight committee, which was due on Friday to receive hundreds of documents about Epstein from the justice department as a result of a subpoena.
Early on Friday afternoon, the FBI were still at Bolton’s house on a residential Bethesda street. Bolton had yet to comment and had not been apprehended or charged with any crimes.
