Former national security advisor John Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland, and his office in Washington, D.C., were raided by the FBI early Friday morning, according to media reports.
Bolton has not been charged nor detained, but the move reportedly is in regards to a “national security investigation in search of classified records,” according to NBC News.
“NO ONE is above the law … FBI agents on mission,” FBI director Kash Patel coyly shared on X ahead of the first raid.
Bolton served as an adviser during President Donald Trump’s first administration, but has since become a vocal critic of his former boss. He’s also worked as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a United States assistant attorney general in the past.
“I know nothing about it,” Trump told reporters after the fact, wearing a red ‘Trump was right about everything’ hat. “I just saw it this morning, they did a raid. They’ll brief me, probably today sometime.”
Former FBI Special Agent Rob D’Amico told MSNBC hosts on Friday that he was “surprised” that Bolton would have had any documents after the clear intentionality from the administration.
“I thought, ‘Wow this is retribution.’ They’re doing what they said they would do,” the former FBI agent said. “But then I look at it and said, ‘Wait a second. If you supported the Mar-a-Lago raid to try to get classified documents out that were quietly gotten before, then you kind of have to support it.”
D’Amico explained that because the team could be looking for classified documents that could live anywhere from a flash drive to a computer to a bedside table, it gives the FBI and SWAT freer reign to search the home.
“This is the really the first step in what could be a long process,” Fox News host David Spunt said. “First of all, agents have to sift through this information. That could take weeks. That could take months. Then they have to present that information to a grand jury.”
Both Fox and MSNBC hosts noted that John Bolton’s federally funded security, which was put in place because the former national security advisor is under threat by Iran, was lifted once Trump took office. He has since had to pay for private security.
MSNBC’s Justice and Intel Correspondent Ken Dilanian, meanwhile, suggested that this raid seems to be part of Trump and the FBI’s attempts to “pursue Trump’s political enemies, though they don’t describe it that way.”
“Donald Trump’s law enforcement apparatus appears to be responding to his desire to re-litigate all of these issues where he thinks he was wronged by the intelligence community, and the justice department and the FBI,” he said. “It’s going in what a lot of people think is a dangerous direction.”
