Federal agents found documents marked classified inside former national security advisor John Bolton’s Washington, D.C., office during an FBI search last month, according to newly released court records.
The Aug. 22 raid turned up folders labeled “confidential” and pages marked “secret,” including those potentially related to weapons of mass destruction, according to redacted court filings released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers. FBI agents also searched Bolton’s Maryland home the same day, though they did not list any classified materials there.
Bolton, who served as national security advisor during President Donald Trump’s first term, was previously under investigation for allegedly including classified information in his 2020 memoir, although that probe was dropped by the Biden DOJ in 2021.
The records that the FBI found at Bolton’s office include classified documents potentially related to weapons of mass destruction, travel memo documents with pages labeled “secret,” confidential documents from the U.S. mission to the U.N. and confidential documents related to strategic communications, according to the court filings.
Inventory of the property taken and name(s) of any person(s) seized, from documents filed in D.C. District Court. (Screenshot/FBI/United States District Court for the District of Columbia)
Court filings also reveal that a foreign entity hacked the former national security advisor’s AOL email account, though who was behind it and what was accessed is unknown.
The warrant applications show investigators are pursuing potential violations of the Espionage Act, including the unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, as well as conspiracy to gather or transmit defense information. The same statute was previously used to justify charges against Trump over the Mar-a-Lago documents case, before a federal judge dismissed the indictment, ruling special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unlawful.
Bolton has been a vocal critic of Trump ever since he resigned from his White House role in 2019.
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