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WASHINGTON − FBI agents searched former national security adviser John Bolton’s house in suburban Maryland, in what the agency called a “court authorized activity" and critics of the administration called "vindictive" and "unnecessary."
Bolton, who served in President Donald Trump’s first term, was previously investigated for allegedly including classified information in his 2020 book about the administration. But the Justice Department dropped that inquiry without charges.
Bolton has become a vocal critic of the administration’s foreign policy and called the president unfit to serve. Trump, who revoked Bolton's security detail and his security clearance after returning to the White House this year, called Bolton a “lowlife” on Aug. 22 but said he didn’t know more about the search than what he saw on television.
The search was part of a national security probe ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, according to the New York Post. CNN also reported the search. Follow along with USA TODAY for live updates.
Vance says classified documents are part of Bolton inquiry
Vice President JD Vance said “classified documents are certainly part of” the search of Bolton’s house but federal authorities have broad concerns about the former national security adviser, in an interview with “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.”
Vance said the investigation is “in the very early stages” and that if no evidence of crimes is found Bolton wouldn’t be charged.
“Classified documents are certainly part of it, but I think that there's a broad concern about, about Ambassador Bolton,” Vance told NBC.
Vance denied Bolton was targeted because he is a critic of the administration.
“We are investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law,” Vance told NBC. “We're going to be deliberate about that, because we don't think that we should throw people even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldn't throw people willy-nilly in prison.”
--Bart Jansen
FBI confirms activity at Bolton house but doesn't identify target of investigation
The FBI confirmed the activity around Bolton’s home but didn’t identify the target of the investigation before declining further comment.
“The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area,” the agency said in a statement. “There is no threat to public safety.”
John Bolton recently described Trump’s second term as ‘a retribution presidency’
Former Trump national security advisor John Bolton said Aug. 10 that he was worried about President Donald Trump’s vow to get revenge against him and other outspoken critics, describing Trump’s second term as “a retribution presidency.”
Trump was asked by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl ABC News “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” about what Karl described as “Trump's retribution campaign we're seeing at the FBI and the Justice Department.”
“You're obviously on his enemies list. At least Kash Patel's enemies list,” Karl said in reference to Trump’s FBI director. “Are you worried that they're going to come after you in some way? I mean, he's hinted at it before.”
“Well, I think he's already come after me and several others in withdrawing the protection that we had for … the Iranians for the attack on Qasem Suleimani,” Bolton said. “So I think, and I said in the new forward to the paperback edition of my book, I think it is a retribution presidency.”
--Josh Meyer
FBI search ‘an obvious act of intimidation,’ says former Obama White House ethics czar
Former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen called the FBI action “an obvious act of intimidation,” and another example of the double standards President Donald Trump is applying “as he puts himself and his cronies above the law, and weaponizes it against his perceived enemies.”
Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund and a former Obama administration ethics lawyer, said in a statement that the FBI action in “raiding the home of a high- profile critic in this way is an attack on the fundamental American right to disagree with the government.”
“If this President, who tramples on the Constitution and laws every day, is willing to abuse his power to go after his own former National Security Adviser, he can do it to anyone,” Eisen said in the statement co-written with Susan Corke, executive director of Democracy Defenders Fund.
“As prominent Republicans pointed out this morning, when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago under the Biden Administration, it negotiated with President Trump’s team for a year beforehand,” Eisen and Corke wrote. “And his possession of those documents was defended by none other than his current FBI Director Kash Patel.”
--Josh Meyer
FBI search may be “a lawful search, but still completely unwarranted,’ former DOJ official says
Former senior Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said the FBI action at John Bolton’s residence may be “a lawful search” but expressed concern that President Donald Trump is trying to equate it to the court-ordered search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022.
The Mar-a-Lago search warrant to find classified documents Trump took with him when leaving office in January 2021 “was necessary after repeated attempts verbally and through a subpoena to obtain the thousands of government documents being kept there,” said Weissmann, a lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“Only when that failed, was a search warrant required to be obtained and executed. So key issues will be what notice was given to Bolton, if any (my surmise is none at all), and the volume of alleged documents (if any),” Weissmann wrote on Substack.
“This may be, at the end of the day, a lawful search, but still completely unwarranted and inappropriate government activity,” Weissmann, a frequent critic of Trump, wrote. “Right now, we do not know enough facts, but I would worry about those who make it seem like this is just doing what the DOJ did with respect to the Trump compound in FLA.”
--Josh Meyer
Trump calls Bolton ‘lowlife’ but knows little about FBI search
Trump told reporters Aug. 22 that he knew little about the FBI searching Bolton’s home but that he is a “lowlife.” He said the Justice Department would probably brief him on the search.
"I'm not a fan of John Bolton," Trump told reporters at The People’s House museum near the White House. "He's a real, sort of a lowlife."
Journalist livestreaming FBI Bolton raid, calls it ‘theatrical.’ ‘Doing it this way allows lots of pictures.’
Journalists and neighbors are lined up outside John Bolton's home in Bethesda to watch – and livestream -- the FBI search of the Trump critic's home. One of them is Benjamin Wittes, the editor in chief of Lawfare, which has been critical of the Trump administration Justice Department.
Wittes was using his cameraphone and Substack journalism platform to livestream the action, available here.
Wittes “has been chronicling Trump's acts of retribution on a near-daily basis,” according to CNN, which reported on Wittes’ livestream, calling the FBI action "theatrical" and noting that "doing it this way allows lots of pictures."
--Josh Meyer
Attorney General Pam Bondi: 'Justice will be pursued'
The Justice Department didn't immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment on the investigation into Bolton. However, the department's head, Attorney General Pam Bondi, re-posted FBI Director Kash Patel's morning statement on X that "NO ONE is above the law." Above that post, Bondi included a message of her own.
"America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always," Bondi said above Patel's message. She didn't clarify what she was referring to.
– Aysha Bagchi
Bolton lawyer has claimed in the past his 2020 memoir contained no classified information despite White House claims
Charles Cooper, a lawyer who has represented Bolton in the past, was unavailable for comment on Aug. 22, a Cooper aide said.
But in 2020, when in news broke of Bolton’s forthcoming book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” Cooper defended it against Trump White House accusations that it contained top-secret information.
"We do not believe that any of that information could reasonably be considered classified,” Cooper wrote in a letter to the White House, Axios reported at the time.
The White House had made public a Jan. 23, 2020, letter addressed to Cooper that claimed Bolton's manuscript contains "significant amounts of classified information" that could "cause exceptionally grave harm" to U.S. national security, Axios said.
--Josh Meyer
Bolton faces ‘serious legal risk’ over book, but timing of search appears ‘vindictive’: expert
Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who represents whistleblowers against the government, said in a social media post Aug. 22 that “there is serious legal risk for Bolton” from the dispute over his book.“But timing of this raid is highly – and I mean highly – suspicious,” Zaid said. “Looks like retaliatory, vindictive behavior.”--Bart Jansen
Trump administration has accused Bolton of using classified info in book
The Justice Department during Trump's first term filed a federal lawsuit and started a criminal investigation into Bolton over allegations that the book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," contained classified information.
"The United States seeks an order requiring Defendant to abide by his contractual and fiduciary duties to complete the pre-publication review process and not disclose classified information without written authorization, thereby protecting the national security of the United States," according to the filing.
Bolton’s attorney, Chuck Cooper, called the lawsuit “a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor” Bolton.
A judge rejected the lawsuit’s request to block the book and the Justice Department dropped both the lawsuit and the criminal inquiry during the Biden administration.
The lawsuit filed in June 2020 alleged that Ellen Knight, the senior director for records access at the National Security Council, found “significant amounts of classified information” including some classified as “TOP SECRET,” in the $2 million book while reviewing it for publication.
But the lawsuit alleged that Bolton was frustrated with the pace of the review and chose to publish before waiting for it to be completed, despite having signed classified nondisclosure agreements.
Bolton had been targeted in Iranian assassination plot
Trump canceled Bolton’s security detail despite the discovery of an Iranian plot to kill him. A member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Shahram Poursafi, was charged in 2022 in a murder-for-hire plot targeting Bolton.The plot was in retaliation for a U.S. drone strike that killed Iran commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020 in Baghdad, according to Justice Department officials.
FBI Director Kash Patel: 'NO ONE is above the law'
“NO ONE is above the law,” Patel said in a social media post Aug. 22 after the search began. “@FBI agents on mission.”
Bolton didn’t mention the search in a social media post Aug. 22 but said he didn’t see “any progress” in Trump leading peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
“Meanwhile, meetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don't see these talks making any progress,” Bolton said.
Bolton, a Trump critic, had said Putin 'clearly won' summit with Trump
Earlier, Bolton had told CNN after Trump met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15 that Putin "clearly won" the summit in Alaska.
“It’s far from over, but I’d say Putin achieved most of what he wanted,” Bolton said. “Trump achieved very little.”
Former FBI deputy director calls search 'really stunning' on CNN
Andrew McCabe, a former deputy director FBI, told CNN on Aug. 22 the search was "really stunning." McCabe said there were reasons to look at the search "with a jaundiced eye" because of what might have motivated the search warrant.
“I don’t think many people saw this one coming," McCabe said. “There is this very fraught relationship between the two, and the President's history of going after people, using the level, the levers of power that he has access to, particularly the Department of Justice, to go after people he doesn't like."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FBI searches home of Trump critic John Bolton reports say: Live updates
Reporting by Bart Jansen, Josh Meyer and Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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