John Bolton’s Home Raided By FBI

Written By Lexx Thornton

The FBI conducted a court-authorized search at John Bolton’s home as part of a national security investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter. CNN observed FBI personnel near the former US national security adviser’s house in the Washington, DC, area. FBI agents were seen speaking to a person on the porch of the house, and at least four to six agents were seen going inside.

Reached by CNN, Bolton said he was unaware of the FBI activity and was looking into it further. The search was first reported by the New York Post on Friday. In a post on social media, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote that agents were “on mission,” but it was unclear if he was referring to the search. “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Patel wrote at around 7 a.m. ET, the same time his agents reportedly arrived at Bolton’s residence in Bethesda, near Washington, D.C.The FBI declined to comment on the search. 

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 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.”