Former National Security Advisor John R. Bolton may be in much deeper trouble than the press has led us to believe. According to The New York Times, the investigation that resulted in search warrants served on Bolton’s residence and office by FBI agents began under the Biden administration and involves matters much more serious than having copies of secret documents for use in his book.
The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.
The investigation of Mr. Bolton, who has become an ardent critic of the president, burst back into public view last week when federal agents searched his Maryland home and Washington office.
While those searches have raised fresh questions about the extent to which Mr. Trump may be using the Justice Department and F.B.I. to try to punish those he dislikes, the new details of the case present a more complex chain of events. The disclosures suggest that a long-running investigation into Mr. Bolton’s activities changed over time, with some of the issues echoing past inquiries into the handling of national security secrets.
Read that carefully. The U.S. intelligence community, I’m presuming the National Security Agency, in particular, collected data from a hostile nation’s intelligence service that showed Bolton sending classified U.S. intelligence to associates over a compromised unclassified system. There is no information as to whether those associates had the requisite clearances and reported the violations to the appropriate authorities.
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Several factors are at play here.
I don’t think it is any accident that the story appeared after JD Vance batted down Kristen Welker’s shabby “you’re a bad person” claim on Meet the Press (video is cued to the transcript).
Back in Washington, the FBI raided the home and office of Mr. Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton searching for classified documents, according to officials. Against this backdrop, I sat down on Friday with Vice President JD Vance at residence and started by asking him about the raid on Ambassador Bolton.
VICE PRES. JD VANCE:
We’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton. I will say we’re going to let that investigation proceed. What I can tell you is that, unlike the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI, our law enforcement agencies are going to be driven by law and not by politics. And so if we think that Ambassador Bolton has committed a crime, of course, eventually prosecutions will come. But as you know, Kristen, this is all part of gathering evidence, trying to understand something that we’re worried about. And, of course, I’ll let the FBI comment on the next stage of the investigation.
KRISTEN WELKER:
What’s at the root of this? Is this about classified documents?
VICE PRES. JD VANCE:
Well, again, I’ll let the FBI speak to that. Classified documents are certainly part of it. But I think that there’s a broad concern about, about Ambassador Bolton. They’re going to look into it. And like I said, if there’s no crime here, we’re not going to prosecute it. If there is a crime here, of course, Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court. That’s how it should be. But again, our focus here is on did he break the law? Did he commit crimes against the American people? If so, then he deserves to be prosecuted.
KRISTEN WELKER:
As you know, Ambassador Bolton is a frequent critic —
VICE PRES. JD VANCE:
Sure.
KRISTEN WELKER:
— of President Trump’s. He’s also on Kash Patel’s enemies list. The administration has already revoked his security clearance, Secret Service protection. Is Ambassador Bolton being targeted because he’s a critic of President Trump?
VICE PRES. JD VANCE:
No, not at all. And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy-nilly, like the Biden administration DOJ did, prosecutions that later got thrown out in court. If we bring a case, and, of course, we haven’t done that yet. The Department of Justice has not done that yet. We are investigating Ambassador Bolton. But if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law. We’re going to be careful about that. We’re going to be deliberate about that because we don’t think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing.
In this interview, Vance tried to wave off the media from the retribution angle after a week of stories like: Search of Bolton’s Home Shows Uneasy Mix of Retribution and Law Enforcement – The New York Times.
The New York Times wisely expanded its narrative from it not being clear “what culpability Mr. Bolton might have,” to a fairly definitive statement that a hostile intelligence service intercepted Bolton’s emails, and those emails contained classified information. For good measure, The New York Times credited Joe Biden for investigating malfeasance that occurred during Trump’s first term.
John Bolton is in deep trouble, and everyone who white-knighted for Bolton after defending the insane Mar-a-Lago raid is going to look especially craven and corrupt as more details emerge. pic.twitter.com/0O8qt2btXN
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 27, 2025
This immunizes Trump from the retribution narrative and virtually ensures Bolton is cooked.
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