Former National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks to reporters after speaking in a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran – U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on August 17, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
FBI agents on Thursday morning raided the Maryland home of John Bolton, the former national security advisor to President Donald Trump and a staunch critic of the president, NBC News confirmed.
The raid is part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records,” a person familiar with the matter told NBC News.
An FBI official said, “The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety,” but declined to comment on Bolton, according to NBC. That statement indicates a judge signed a search warrant for Bolton’s residence.
FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission” at around 7 a.m. ET, the same time his agents reportedly arrived at Bolton’s home in Bethesda, near Washington, D.C.
Attorney General Pam Bondi retweeted Patel’s tweet, writing, “America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always.”
And Patel’s deputy director at the FBI, Dan Bongino, in his own post on X wrote, “Public corruption will not be tolerated.”
The New York Post first reported the raid.
Patel ordered the investigation into Bolton, according to the Post, which cited a Trump administration official.
Trump lashed out against Bolton on Aug. 13 after his former advisor criticized the president for agreeing to host a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
“Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, ‘Putin has already won,’ ” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “What’s that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING.”
Trump was previously indicted in federal court in Florida on charges related to his retention of classified government records at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach after leaving the White House in January 2021, and with his efforts to thwart them being recorded by government officials.
The Justice Department dropped that case in late 2024, shortly after Trump was elected president, because of a department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
The Justice Department sued Bolton in 2020 in an effort to block the publication and sale of his book “The Room Where it Happened,” which was a damning account of his time serving as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019, during Trump’s first term in the White House. The lawsuit was filed during Trump’s last year of that term.
A Justice Department lawyer told a judge that year that the book was “a flagrant breach of” Bolton’s agreement not to write about classified matters.
The department dropped the lawsuit in June 2021, five months after then-President Joe Biden took office.
Bolton served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the administration of President George W. Bush.