Trump Coy during the House of Critique John Bolton: “I could find out. I could be the one who begins him ‘
On Friday, the FBI searched Maryland Home and the Washington office of the former national security advisor to the Trump administration, John Bolton, as part of a criminal investigation into the potential mismanagement of classified information, said a person familiar with the case.
Bolton, who appeared to be a frank critic of President Donald Trump after being dismissed in 2019 and fought with the first Trump administration on a scathing book that he wrote documenting his time in the White House, was not in police custody on Friday and was not accused of any crime, said that the person who was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and to the press of the press.
The searches, apparently the most important public measure of the Ministry of Justice, have crossed against an enemy perceived by the president, are likely to arouse new concerns that the Trump administration uses its powers of application of the law to target the enemies of the Republican. They come then that the Trump administration decided to examine the activities of other criticisms, in particular by authorizing an investigation by the great jury on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation which overwhelmed Trump for a large part of its first mandate, and as the FBI and the leaders of the Ministry of Justice report their loyalty to the president.
Addressing journalists during an unforeseen visit to the historic association of the White House, Trump said that he had seen the coverage of the news of the searches on Friday and should be informed by the Ministry of Justice, but also insisted that he did not “want to know”.
“I could know it. I could be the one who begins. I am actually the head of the police. But I think it’s better that way,” said Trump.
Bolton had declared in interviews this year that he was aware that he could be examined, saying at the AP in January shortly before Trump is down, “anyone who never agrees with Trump must worry about reprisals. It is a fairly long list.”
A search for the FBI and that of the Bolton properties requires the authorization of a federal magistrate judge. It is not immediately known what the information authorities submitted to demonstrate that they had a probable cause of a crime, although the Ministry of Justice launched years ago an investigation of the question of whether Bolton has wrongly disclosed classified information in a book manuscript he had written. The investigation was then closed.
Vice-president JD Vance denied on Friday in an interview with NBC News that Bolton was targeted because of his Trump review: “If there is no crime here, we are not going to continue him. If there is a crime here, of course, the Bolton ambassador will have his day in court. It’s like that. ”
Bolton was in his office building at the time
Bolton was not at home for the excavation of his house, but after starting, he was spotted Friday morning standing in the hall of the Washington building where he keeps an office and speaks to two people with “FBI” visible on their vests. He left a few minutes later and seemed to be mounted upstairs in the building. Agents were seen take bags in the office building through a rear entrance.
The messages left with a Bolton spokesperson were not immediately returned, and a lawyer who represented Bolton had no immediate comments.
The Ministry of Justice had no comments, but the leaders seemed to refer to research in a series of publications on social networks on Friday morning.
The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, who included Bolton on a list of “members of the Executive Deep State branch” in a book of 2023 that he wrote, published on X: “No one is above the law … @FBI agents on mission.” The Attorney General Pam Bondi shared his post, adding: “The security of America is not negotiable. Justice will be continued. Always.”
The Ministry of Justice is conducting surveys into mortgage fraud on the Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California and the prosecutor of New York, Letitia James, who brought a complaint for civil fraud against Trump and his company, and the prosecutor of Trump Jack Smith, faces an investigation by an independent surveillance office. Schiff and James vigorously denied any reprehensible act through their lawyers.
The excavations of Bolton also took place in the context of a research in 2022 of classified documents in the Mar-A-Lago field of Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, an action which caused criminal charges since dissected but remains the source of indignation for the presidents and supporters who insist.
Patel declared in an interview with Fox Business Channel this week that the search for Mar-A-Lago represented a “total armament and politicization” of the office, and Trump himself referred on Friday, telling journalists: “I suppose that his house was attacked today, but my house was also attacked.”
Trump and Bolton have disagreed for years
Bolton was advisor to Trump’s national security for 17 months and clashed with him against Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea.
He faced a meticulous examination during the first Trump administration on a book he wrote on his stay in the government, which the officials disclosed classified information. To assert its file, the Ministry of Justice in 2020 submitted declarations under the oath of senior administration officials, including the director of the national security agency Paul Nakasone, saying that the Bolton manuscript included classified information that could affect national security if they are exposed.
Bolton lawyers said that he had advanced with the book after a head of the National Security Council of the White House, with whom Bolton had worked for months, the manuscript no longer contained classified information.
The Ministry of Justice of the Biden Administration in 2021 abandoned its trial and abandoned a separate investigation by the Grand Jury, Bolton’s lawyer calling for the effort to block the book “politically motivated” and illegitimate.
Bolton’s harshly critical book, “the room where it happened,” said Trump as being roughly poorly informed of foreign policy and said that he “saw plots behind the rocks, and remained incredibly informed in the way of leading the White House, not to mention the huge federal government”.
Trump replied by slamming Bolton as a “crazy” fellowship that would have led the country to “World War II”.
Bolton was an ambassador of the United States to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and also held positions in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. He planned to go to the presidency in 2012 and 2016.
Trump, on his first day of power this year, revoked security authorizations of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Bolton was also part of a group of former Trump officials whose security details were canceled by Trump earlier this year.
In 2022, an Iranian agent was charged in a plot to kill Bolton in alleged retaliation for an American air strike of 2020 who killed the most powerful general in the country.
The management of information classified by senior government officials has been a subject politically charged in recent years. In addition to Trump, the Ministry of Justice also investigated the question of whether the president of the time, Joe Biden, a democrat, missed information after being vice-president of the Obama administration, and the FBI also recovered what he said to be classified documents from the home of the former vice-president of Trump, Mike Pence. None of the two men was charged.
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The writers of the Associated Press Michelle L. Price, Nathan Ellgren, Lindsay Whitehurst, Alanna Durkin Richer, Byron Tau and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
