The FBI seized phones, computer equipment and typed documents from the home of John Bolton as part of an investigation into whether one of President Donald Trump’s first-term national security advisers mishandled government secrets, according to court records unsealed Thursday.
The criminal investigation burst into public view last month when agents searched Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland and his office in the District of Columbia. A person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity said at the time that it concerned allegations of the potential mishandling of classified information. No charges have been filed.
A coalition of news organizations had urged a judge in Maryland, where the FBI had applied for a search warrant, to unseal records surrounding the search, citing a “tremendous public interest” that they said outweighed the need for continued secrecy.
Redacted documents were made public Thursday that shed new light on the investigation. Among them is a search warrant inventory showing that the FBI took from the home multiple phones, computer equipment, four boxes containing daily printed activities, typed documents in folders labeled “Trump I-IV,” a white binder labeled “Statements and Reflections to Allied Strikes” and other materials.
The court records also cite two criminal statutes underpinning the investigation, including laws that make it a crime to gather, transmit or lose national defense information and to remove and retain classified documents or materials without authorization.
Bolton served for 17 months as national security adviser during Trump’s first term, clashing with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea before being fired in 2019. Since then, he has openly criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government, including in a 2020 book he published called “The Room Where it Happened” that portrayed Trump as ill-informed.
The Justice Department had made an earlier effort to investigate whether that book illegally disclosed classified information, launching an inquiry that began during the first Trump administration and continued into the Biden administration without producing criminal charges. His lawyer said in June 2021 that the probe had been closed.
The records released Thursday do not detail the precise allegations or say if additional information has been found to breathe new life into the investigation. A person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the investigation that resulted in the FBI search predated Trump’s arrival in the White House last January.
In a statement Thursday, Bolton’s new lawyer, prominent Washington criminal defense attorney Abbe David Lowell, said the Justice Department was “under pressure to satisfy a president out for political revenge.”
“The materials taken from Amb. Bolton’s home are the ordinary records of a 40-year career serving this country at the State Department, as an Assistant Attorney General, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and National Security Advisor. Any thorough review will show nothing inappropriate was stored or kept by Amb. Bolton,” he said.
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