Were the Raids on John Bolton’s Home and Office Justified?

Last week, the FBI raided the home and office of John Bolton, former national security advisor during the first administration of Donald Trump. Documents – possibly classified ones – were taken, but Bolton was not arrested or indicted. People on the Left and “Never Trump” claim that Trump is seeking revenge tour because John Brennan, James Clapper, and James Comey are under investigation. Threats are made about going after Anthony Fauci.

In an article published at The Daily Signal, Victor Davis Hanson claim that there is “more to the story.” Bolton’s “story” began in 2019 when Trump fired Bolton as national security adviser. At the time, Bolton was writing a “book on the premise that he had been in the room.” 

So, he was supposed to be this anti-Trump, high-level appointee and famous in the conservative circles as a war hawk and interventionist. But he had intimate knowledge about how Donald Trump functioned abroad with major allies and enemies and rivals and neutrals and how he was at home. And he wrote this damning book, memoir about Trump.

The Trump DOJ said, “He’s just trying to write this right during the campaign season. And he’s a surrogate for the Biden campaign, in his bitterness. He’s angry. But more importantly, he is using this classified information through the filter of the notes he took and he is going to hurt U.S. national security.”

So, [the DOJ filed] a motion to stop the publication.

The book was almost out. A federal judge, Royce Lamberth, looked at it and he thought – he basically said, “Well, I can’t really stop the book. It’s gonna be released in a few days.” But in kind of a rare excursus, he said, “John Bolton, you’re doing something wrong. You are violating, likely national security laws. And if you don’t stop, you’ll be subject, at some point, to criminal prosecution.” And then he let it rest.

Then the DOJ kept investigating. Donald Trump lost the election. During the [Biden] transition, they looked at it…. When President Joe Biden came into office, they dropped it by June. Six months.

So now the question is, did they go in to get these documents last week because they were on a revenge tour? Retribution against Bolton because he’s been all over left-wing cable news … blasting Donald Trump on everything…. And therefore, he made himself a target….

There [are] two things to watch to see whether Bolton is accurate. But I would … [talk] about those two criteria. I will say that when Donald Trump’s home was raided on Aug. 9, 2022, John Bolton spoke out [saying to not jump to conclusions, but] he’s probably guilty….

So, he was very critical of anybody who objected to what he thought was an FBI-legitimate raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Now it’s ironic. We’ll see if he uses the same tropes and themes to protect himself in the way that he blasted Trump for a similar raid. But what we’re looking at is to see if it was justified or whether it was vengeful … but a federal judge said, “You know what? There’s something there,” but it was dropped, to go back and rehash that I don’t think is gonna be worth it.

And maybe it was a vengeful shot across the bow to Bolton. He probably wouldn’t be charged. But also, to other people like Comey and Clapper and Brennan, Fauci, Mark Milley: “All of you, be careful. You’ve done something wrong and we’re gonna investigate you. And that’s gonna cost you a lot of money for legal counsel.” That would not be good, it that were true.

But here’s why I don’t think it’s quite like that. To get the FBI’s permission to go into the Bolton home, you had to have two different federal judges examine the request – the permission to enter the Bolton home and office. And they did give it. And they’re disinterested third parties.

Second, why did the Biden administration drop this investigation? They never even told us….

And third, … there were leaks, rumors that the FBI went in there not to examine the old charges of his notes that were used improperly to write his critical anti-Trump book, but because there had been allegations, for a long time, that John Bolton transferred classified information. That doesn’t mean he downloaded attachments, necessarily – CIA or FBI analyses or national security assessments. It just meant that he was trying to transfer some information that he should not to his family, as if he could evade surveillance by intelligence authorities of any impropriety.

If he did that … – as some of the rumors say – then it’s a different story. That would be new information.

And that would mean that John Bolton – maybe to write his notes, maybe to enhance his career s a consultant, or think tanker, or as an author, or just  gadfly – was going back and looking at things that transpired during his first-term service …. But nevertheless, to chronicle it, he didn’t just write it down in his notebook, which could be found and subpoenaed, but he sent emails to particular people, namely his family, to memorialize that. If that’s true, he has legal jeopardy.

So it’s either … a vengeful tour, revenge, retribution, payback. I think, more likely, there’s something there or two – … – two federal judges would not have given permission to look. And if he did transfer files that were classified, the penalties fall under the Espionage Act. And they can be over 10 to 20 years in imprisonment.

So, we’ll see what’s going to happen. But meanwhile, the Left is alleging retribution. And the Trump DOJ and FBI said, “Just hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Wait till you read the actual request for an intervention or so-called raid. And let’s see what we found and then make an assessment.”