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 Friday 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.
Agents also raided Bolton’s office in Washington, D.C., according to NBC News.
The raids are part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records,” a person familiar with the matter told NBC.
The probe is eyeing multiple instances of the use of classified documents in leaks to news media. The investigation began during the Biden administration, but did not go further before President Joe Biden left office in January.
Bolton served as Trump’s national security advisor from April 2018 through September 2019.
FBI agents walk outside the house of John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security advisor after the FBI conducted a court-authorized search at his place on August 22, 2025 in Bethesda, Maryland.
Pedro Ugarte | AFP | Getty Images
An FBI official said Friday, “The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety,” according to NBC.
That statement indicates a judge signed a search warrant for Bolton’s residence in Bethesda, just outside of Washington.
It was not known if Bolton was home at the time of the raid, which began at around 7 a.m. ET. A woman who appeared to be Bolton’s wife was at the residence.
About a half hour after the raid began, Bolton tweeted about Russia and its war on Ukraine, writing that Trump will continue pushing for meetings on the ocnflict “because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress.”
FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission” at the same time his agents were raiding Bolton’s home.
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.”
Trump later told reporters that he did not know about the raid, but that he expected to be briefed about it later Friday.
The president also said he is “not a fan of John Bolton,” and called him a “lowlife.”
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 to discuss how to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“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 that day. “What’s that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING.”
On Aug. 17, after he met with Putin, Trump wrote, “This war can be ended, NOW, but stupid people like [Sen.] Chris Murphy, John Bolton, and others, make it much harder to do so.”
Trump cancelled Bolton’s protective detail from the U.S. Secret Service after he was sworn in for his second term in the White House in January. Bolton had been under Secret Service protection because of plots by Iran to kill him.
Montgomery County police officers stand guard outside the house of John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security advisor after FBI agents conducted a court-authorized search at his place on August 22, 2025 in Bethesda, Maryland.
Pedro Ugarte | AFP | Getty Images
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 their recovery by government officials.
Trump said on Sept. 10, 2019, that he fired Bolton the prior evening.
“I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration,” Trump wrote in a tweet that day.
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 as Trump’s national security advisor. The lawsuit was filed during Trump’s last year of his first 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 Biden took office.
Bolton served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the administration of President George W. Bush.
