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| John Bolton’s wife Gretchen Smith Bolton outside of their Bethesda, Md. home on Aug. 22 |
FBI agents raided the Maryland home and Washington, DC office of President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton Friday morning in a high-profile probe of allegations that he sent “highly sensitive” classified documents to his family from a private email server while working in the White House.
Federal investigators went to Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump administration official told The Post. Agents later went to Bolton’s office in downtown DC, but did not enter until a judge signed a warrant for that location late Friday morning.
“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Patel said in a cryptic post to X shortly after the raid began.
Bolton has not been arrested and is not currently charged with any crimes, the administration official added.
“He’s not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy,” President Trump told reporters of Bolton Friday morning. “We’re going to find out.”
Investigators reopened a dormant probe into Bolton’s alleged use of a private email to send classified national security documents to his wife and daughter from his work desk before his dismissal by Trump in September 2019, according to a senior US official.
“While Bolton was a national security adviser, he was literally stealing classified information, utilizing his family as a cutout,” this person charged.
The probe was initially opened in 2020, and continued into the Biden administration, which froze the investigation.
Friday’s raid came at the behest of Patel, who reopened the matter after he took over the FBI in February, the senior US official said.
The president told reporters at the White House that he had no advance knowledge of the operation.
“I know nothing about it,” Trump insisted. “I just saw it this morning … I tell [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi] and I tell the group: ‘I don’t want to know, but you have to do what you have to do. I don’t want to know about it.’”
“I could know about it. I could be the one starting — and I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer — but I feel that it’s better this way,” the president added.
It is not unusual for a president not to have been informed ahead of an FBI raid. Traditionally, the Justice Department has worked independently of the White House — especially on matters potentially tied to domestic politics. For example, former President Joe Biden said he was not given a heads-up about an August 2022 FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to recover national security papers sought by the National Archives.
The latest probe spawned out of a separate criminal inquiry into Bolton from Trump’s first term over the ex-adviser’s alleged disclosure of national secrets in his 2020 book, “The Room Where It Happened.”
Justice Department officials who also served during the Biden administration purportedly told Trump officials that they had been “trying to prosecute this case for four years, and the [Biden DOJ] shut it down,” according to the senior official.
Investigators suspect the pause in the probe may have been motivated by the ex-national security adviser’s public political opposition to Trump.
Bolton has been at odds with his old boss since Trump fired him, regularly appearing on CNN and criticizing the president’s national security and foreign policy aims.
Trump, 79, unsuccessfully fought to quash publication of “The Room Where It Happened” over its inclusion of national secrets — saying Bolton broke a non-disclosure agreement signed as a condition of his employment.
Search warrants underpinning Friday’s raids — which have yet to be unsealed — include references to the book controversy to convey a pattern of behavior on Bolton’s part; however, the senior US official described the probe as a “clean break” from the investigation over the former White House official’s memoir.
“[Prosecutors] talk about the book [in the warrants] because it’s good color for him already having essentially broken the law,” this person said, “but we’re not prosecuting him for that … [it has] absolutely 100% nothing to do with the book.”
“All these people have been wrapping their heads around an axle about, ‘Oh, they’re really re-litigating the book?’” the official went on, reacting to media speculation throughout the day Friday. “The book investigation is over. Who gives a f—?”
Upon taking office Jan. 20, Trump terminated Bolton’s security clearance and Secret Service detail.
The move prompted concerns for the ex-adviser’s safety, with Iran identifying Bolton as an assassination target in retribution for his role in the January 2020 drone strike that took out Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Bolton, 76, has also been a vocal advocate of regime change in Iran throughout his diplomatic career.
Bolton’s X account blasted out a message at 7:32 a.m. — as FBI agents were inside his home — criticizing Trump’s approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine. It was unclear whether it was a scheduled post.
“Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer. Zelensky will never do so,” Bolton wrote.
“Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress.”
The Bolton raid comes one day after Patel revealed former FBI Director James Comey had authorized leaks of classified documents “while misleading Congress” just before the 2016 elections.
Patel has pledged to rid the federal government of corruption and expose cover-ups, especially related to the FBI’s investigation of collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
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