FBI agents raid former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s home

FBI agents early Friday raided the suburban Maryland home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton as part of an investigation into a national security matter.

FBI Director Kash Patel hinted at the action in a cryptic post on his X social media account.

“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Patel wrote.

Officials said the search of Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home involved a national security case that began under the Biden administration but wasn’t aggressively pursued until Patel took over earlier this year. They declined to be more specific.

Police cars were spotted outside Bolton's residence in Bethesda, Md., with a small crowd gathering to observe the goings on, according to the Associated Press.

Bolton was one of several national security advisers for Trump, but was eventually fired and became a critic of the current president and Patel's nomination as FBI Director.

The Justice Department sued Bolton in 2020 over his memoir "The Room Where it Happened," alleging he breached his contract by failing to conduct a pre-publication check for classified information. Eventually, the department opened a criminal investigation into whether Bolton had disclosed such information in the memoir. 

The Biden Justice Department closed that investigation in 2021. "This is a complete vindication," Bolton told Axios. "They're just giving up."

The federal judge allowed Bolton to move forward with publishing the book, but ruled that he "likely published classified materials" and "exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability." 

Earlier this year, Trump pulled Bolton's security clearance and Secret Service protection, drawing objections from some GOP senators like Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

After that action, Bolton eerily predicted he might face further action from Patel's FBI.

"I think the central characteristic Trump seems to be looking for in all of the appointees we’ve seen so far is fealty to him," he told the Christian Science Monitor in January. "A lot of people say it’s loyalty. Loyalty is a virtue, it’s a good thing. That’s not what Trump wants. He wants fealty to him. He wants submissiveness. He wants yes-men and yes-women. And Kash Patel has demonstrated, in his service in Trump’s first term, that he’ll simply do whatever Trump wants.

In response to a question in the interview about Patel, he said: "I don’t think he’s qualified," Bolton told the Christian Science Monitor. "And if there is a retribution campaign, and there certainly seems to be, he would be a central element of it. I think that’s dangerous."