The August FBI raid at the Maryland home of President Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, was part of an ongoing federal investigation into potential violations of two laws, including the Espionage Act — the same statutes that ensnared Mr. Trump after the 2022 raiding of Mar-a-Lago — according to a search warrant that was unsealed Thursday. 

Mr. Bolton, who served as national security advisor to Mr. Trump in 2018 and 2019, has enraged his former boss for years, first with a 2020 memoir of his time in the White House, and then with a constant slurry of media appearances during which he would make unflattering comments about Mr. Trump’s handling of foreign affairs. Mr. Bolton is now under investigation for the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material, according to unsealed court documents. 

FBI investigators said they had recovered several computers, phones, hard drives, and a binder labeled “Statements and Reactions to Allied Strikes” during the August 22 raid of Mr. Bolton’s home at Bethesda, Maryland, according to court documents. 

Investigators also recovered folders labeled “Trump I-IV,” the documents show.

A senior law enforcement official tells the Sun that the Trump administration is “pretty confident” it now has a solid case against Mr. Bolton. 

The raid at Mr. Bolton’s home, ordered by the FBI director, Kash Patel, was described as a resumption of a “national security probe” launched in 2020 after the publication of Mr. Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened.” The Trump White House tried — and ultimately failed — to stop the book’s publication and the probe was a result of White House accusations that Mr. Bolton, in writing the book, had broken rules related to classified materials.

The Biden administration dropped the probe after Mr. Trump left office.  

“This is a national security case that was closed by the Biden administration. Kash reopened it, and Kash reignited it,” an FBI official told the Sun. 

Mr. Trump denied any involvement in the August 22 raid, saying, “I purposefully don’t really want to get involved in it,” while also pointing out its similarities to the 2022 documents search at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He has continued to make cutting remarks about Mr. Bolton, describing him as stupid, which is how Mr. Bolton described Mr. Trump in his book.

Mr. Trump has continued to be furious about the investigation he underwent in 2022 over his handling of classified documents. He is most unhappy with the August 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. He has frequently complained about armed FBI agents penetrating the private bedchamber of his wife, Melania Trump, and rifling through her personal effects while hunting for classified documents. Agents also searched his teenage son Barron’s room.

“They went through everything they could, including my young son’s room and my wife’s area. They went through her drawers, as the expression goes. They went through everything you can imagine,” Mr. Trump recently said. 

“I know the feeling is not a good feeling,” Mr. Trump added in a rare expression of sympathy for Mr. Bolton — a man he describes as a “sleazebag.”

Special Counsel Jack Smith eventually charged Mr. Trump with 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act through the retention and concealment of classified documents, among other charges related to obstruction of justice and making false statements. 

The case was ultimately dismissed in 2024 by District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled that the Biden administration’s justice department illegally appointed Mr. Smith to the special counsel role. Upon Mr. Trump’s re-election later that year, Mr. Smith ended his prosecutions.

In his 2020 memoir, Mr. Bolton did not hold back criticism of Mr. Trump’s handling of foreign policy during his first administration, writing in his foreword that Mr. Trump “is unfit to be President.” 

The book was a no. 1 New York Times best seller and was one of the most successful Trump tell-alls, selling 780,000 copies in its first week alone. In the book, Mr. Bolton was withering about Mr. Trump, describing the president as a gullible figure easily manipulated by flattery from foreign strongmen. 

The first Trump White House began fighting with Mr. Bolton in 2020, prior to the publication of his book. Mr. Bolton argued that he’d been advised verbally by the relevant National Security Council official that his book did not contain classified information. The White House, demanding another round of review, sued to block the book’s publication nevertheless, and a federal judge allowed the book to be published. The White House appealed and the Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into Mr. Bolton’s use of classified material — the lawsuit and the criminal probe were dropped by the Biden administration. 

Mr. Bolton later became the target of an assassination plot orchestrated by Iran, according to American intelligence officials. Mr. Trump pulled Mr. Bolton’s Secret Service detail — which Mr. Bolton had retained after he left government due to the death threats — when he returned to power in 2025. Mr. Trump said Mr. Bolton could afford his own security.

The August raid did little to silence Mr. Bolton’s criticism of Mr. Trump. Earlier this week, Mr. Bolton said President Vladimir Putin was using his “KGB training” to exploit and manipulate Mr. Trump’s weaknesses. 

In response to a summit of world leaders hosted by President Xi Jinping, which included Mr. Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Bolton said on X that Mr. Trump’s “unwillingness to consider diplomatic moves in a larger strategic context has given Xi Jinping an opportunity to reset the East.”

“The White House has set U.S.-India relations back decades, pushing Modi closer to Russia and China. Beijing has cast itself as an alternative to the U.S. and Donald Trump,” Mr. Bolton posted on X.