(Washington) American federal police (FBI) searched the home and office of John Bolton, Maryland and Washington, as part of a survey on classified information management on Friday, said a person well aware of the file. This national security advisor for Donald Trump’s first administration was then critical of him.
Mr. Bolton was not arrested and was not charged with any crime, said this person, who was not authorized to comment on the investigation namely and who requested anonymity with the Associated Press.
After the start of the search of Mr. Bolton, he was seen Friday morning in the hall of the Washington building where he has an office, chatting with two people bearing the “FBI” inscription on their vests. He left a few minutes later and seems to be mounted upstairs.
Photo Julia Nikhinson, Associated Press
FBI agents enter the building where John Bolton has an office in Washington.
The messages left to a spokesperson for Mr. Bolton and the White House remained unanswered. The lawyer who already represented John Bolton did not comment immediately on Friday.
The Department of Justice did not comment either, but managers seemed to be as an asgoing for the search in a series of publications on social networks on Friday morning.
The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, who, in a book published in 2023, included Mr. Bolton in the list of “members of the deep state of the executive branch”, published on X: “No one is above the laws … The agents (of the FBI) are on a mission. »»
The general prosecutor PAM Bondi shared its publication, adding: “The security of the United States is not negotiable. Justice will be done. Always. »»
Surveys on opponents
The search for Mr. Bolton’s home intervenes while the Trump administration has taken action to examine the activities of other alleged opponents of the Republican president, in particular by authorizing an investigation by a great jury on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
Photo Pedro Ugarte, agency France-Presse
FBI agents at John Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Maryland
Investigations are also carried out for mortgage fraud against the Democratic Senator of California Adam Schiff and the General Prosecutor of New York State, Letitia James, who brought civil action for fraud against Mr. Trump and his business. Former prosecutor Jack Smith is also under investigation by an independent surveillance organization. Mr. Schiff and Mme James vigorously denied any reprehensible act through their lawyers.
During an interview with ABC earlier this month, Mr. Bolton was asked about his fears of seeing the Trump administration take measures against him. He said Trump “had already attacked him” withdrawing his security service, adding: “I think it is a presidency of reprisals. »»
John Bolton was the third national security advisor to Mr. Trump for 17 months and opposed him on the challenges of Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. He had been closely monitored under the first Trump administration because of a book he wrote in his path to government, The Room where it happenedwhich, according to officials, has disclosed classified information. However, the Department of Justice abandoned its prosecution in 2021 and a separate investigation by a large jury.
Mr. Bolton’s lawyers said he had gone forward with the publication of the book after a manager of the National Security Council of the White House, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer contained classified information.
Upon his return to power this year, Donald Trump revoked security authorizations of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including John Bolton.
Photo Evan Vucci, Associated Press Archives
John Bolton listens to President Donald Trump’s speech at a meeting of the cabinet at the White House in April 2018.
A critical work by Donald Trump
Mr. Bolton’s scathing book, The Room where it happeneddepicts Trump as extremely badly informed in foreign policy and says that he “saw plots behind stones and was surprisingly ignorant of how to direct the White House, not to mention the immense federal government”.
Trump reacted by calling Bolton as a herical “madman” who would have trained the country in the “sixth world war”.
John Bolton was an ambassador of the United States to the United Nations under the chairmanship of George W. Bush and also held posts in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. He had planned to go to the presidency in 2012 and 2016.
In 2022, an Iranian agent was charged with a conspiracy to kill Mr. Bolton, in reprisals allegedly in an American air strike in January 2020 who killed the most powerful general in the country. Mr. Bolton then left the Trump administration, but wrote on X: “I hope this is the first step towards a regime change in Tehran. »»
