Federal investigators are preparing criminal charges against former Trump national security advisor John Bolton following Friday’s raids on his Maryland home and Washington D.C. office.
High-ranking FBI officials told The New York Post that Bolton should face prosecution for allegedly emailing highly sensitive classified materials to family members through a private server.
The charges stem from what sources describe as an “air-tight” case built around evidence that Bolton transferred classified documents to his wife and daughter from his White House desk before President Donald Trump fired him in September 2019. The alleged criminal activity was first identified in 2020 through what investigators call “very specific intelligence capacity.”
FBI agents seized “a lot” of potential evidence from Bolton’s Bethesda home and “a bunch” from his DC office during Friday’s operation, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The Justice Department does not intend to prosecute Bolton’s wife and daughter, the sources added.
The case centers on allegations that the 76-year-old Bolton used a private email server to send classified national security documents to his family members while serving as Trump’s third national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. This investigation is entirely separate from a previous probe into Bolton’s 2020 memoir “The Room Where it Happened.”
A senior FBI official said that the Biden administration “had probable cause to know that he had taken material that was detrimental to the national security of the United States, and they made no effort to retrieve it.” The Biden administration “shelved” the investigation in June 2021 “for political reasons,” according to a senior U.S. official.
FBI officials believe the Biden administration’s decision not to pursue the case was politically motivated, given Bolton’s role as one of Trump’s most prominent critics.
“That was a friendly administration to [Bolton.] They kept bashing [Trump] the entire time for ‘weaponizing law enforcement,’ and they — by politically stopping a righteous investigation — are the ones who weaponized law enforcement,” the FBI official said.
The case was so thoroughly buried that FBI Director Kash Patel only learned about it approximately one month after his February confirmation, when he requested briefings on sensitive cases. Investigators encouraged Patel to examine the matter closely, explaining it was an entirely separate case from the closed book investigation that had been stopped by the Biden administration over the past four years.
The potential charges highlight a significant development in what officials describe as a “larger classified leaking probe that extended into the Biden administration,” as the investigation has reportedly evolved beyond Bolton’s individual case.
Trump, when asked about Friday’s raid, said he did not know about it ahead of time.
“I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real lowlife,” Trump told reporters. He called Bolton “not a smart guy” and said “he could be very unpatriotic.”
Trump also described Bolton as “a very quiet person except on television if he can say something bad about Trump” and told reporters,
“I thought he was a sleazebag, actually. And he suffers major Trump Derangement Syndrome, but so do a lot of people and they’re not being affected by anything we do.”
Vice President JD Vance told “Meet the Press” on Friday that “we’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton.” Vance denied that Bolton was being targeted for criticizing Trump.
Following the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2022, Bolton was among Trump’s most vocal critics regarding classified document issues.
“Bolton really had some nerve to attack Trump over his handling of classified information,” a source told Fox News.
The timing of potential charges is significant given that the statute of limitations for most federal crimes involving classified documents is five years from the date the offense was committed. Since the alleged document transfers occurred in 2019, federal prosecutors still have time to bring charges related to those specific violations.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who ordered Friday’s raid according to a Trump administration official, wrote on X that “no one is above the law… [FBI] agents on a mission.” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino shared the post and wrote, “Public corruption will not be tolerated.”
Bolton is listed among former U.S. officials in Patel’s 2023 book “Government Gangsters” as “Members of the Executive Branch Deep State.” Since taking office, the FBI Director has pledged to root out corruption in the executive branch, including matters related to the FBI’s investigation of alleged collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Federal investigators are confident in their case against Bolton, with the evidence gathered during Friday’s raids expected to strengthen their position for bringing formal charges in the coming weeks.