John Bolton, whose home and office were searched by federal agents on Friday, has been one of the most vocal critics of President Donald Trump since serving as a national security adviser in Trump’s first administration.
After serving in the White House, Bolton wrote a scathing book that portrayed Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy. FBI agents’ searches of Bolton’s Maryland home and Washington office, purportedly part of an investigation into the handling of classified information, raise the question of possible future actions against critics of the Republican president who have voiced their opinions.
Bolton was not detained and has not been charged with any crimes, a person not authorized to discuss the investigation by name told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Here’s more information on Bolton, a Republican and foreign policy hawk:
Bolton served as Trump’s third national security adviser, appointed in 2018 after Trump dismissed H.R. McMaster.
Bolton’s 17-month tenure was rife with clashes over countries including North Korea and Iran, with him voicing skepticism over Trump’s outreach toward and summit with Kim Jong Un. On Iran, Bolton backed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal but favored regime change and was frustrated when Trump called off a planned military strike in 2019.
Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure, with Trump announcing on social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton’s resignation.
Bolton’s 2020 book, “The Room Where It Happened,” painted an unvarnished portrait of Trump and his administration, amounting to the most vivid first-person account at the time of how Trump conducts himself in office. The 577-page book portrayed Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy, with Bolton writing that the president “saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government.”
Bolton wrote that while he was at the White House, Trump typically had only two intelligence briefings a week “and in most of those, he spoke at greater length than the briefers, often on matters completely unrelated to the subjects at hand.”
On Ukraine, Bolton alleged that Trump directly tied providing military aid to the country’s willingness to conduct investigations into Joe Biden, soon-to-be Trump’s Democratic 2020 election rival, and members of his family. In one conversation, Trump said “he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over,” Bolton wrote.
Bolton also wrote that he felt “hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations,” noting how Trump “pleaded” with China’s Xi Jinping during a 2019 summit to help his reelection prospects.
Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” war-monger who would have led the country into “World War Six.” Trump also said at the time that the book contained “highly classified information” and that Bolton “did not have approval” for publishing it.
The White House worked furiously to block the book, unsuccessfully asking a federal court for an emergency temporary restraining order against its release.
In an interview that aired Wednesday on NPR, Bolton said little has changed in bringing an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, pointing to Trump’s efforts to secure a Nobel Peace Prize as the president’s motivation to end the conflict.
“There’s no indication at all that Russia has in any way changed its objective, which is to bring Ukraine into the greater Russian Empire,” Bolton said. “Nor is there any real sign that Zelenskyy is prepared to do the sorts of things that Russia has demanded of President Trump, such as ceding a substantial part of the Donetsk Oblast or province, which the Russians have not yet been able to conquer militarily.”
On Thursday, Bolton posted to X that “Putin’s KGB training and flattery campaign is working Trump over, as seen by Trump’s statement recently about how Ukraine shouldn’t have taken the war on. It’s important to remember: Ukraine didn’t take anything on, they were invaded.”
And in an Aug. 14 interview with CBS News, Bolton castigated Trump’s decision prior to his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, continuing that criticism following the meeting on X.
“In Alaska, President Trump did not lose, but Putin clearly won,” Bolton posted. “Vladimir has his old friend Donald back.”
Trump has spent a career fixed on image, prizing striking looks and frequently boasting about family members and Cabinet officials who look like they “stepped out of central casting.”
Bolton’s bushy mustache simply didn’t fit the part.
During the transition period following his 2016 election, Trump reportedly ruled out choosing Bolton to serve as secretary of state in part because he disliked his signature bushy mustache. Following a meeting with Bolton at Trump Tower, Trump told confidants that the hawk’s trademark mustache would never be a fit in his administration, although he kept an admiring eye on Bolton’s frequent cable TV appearances, during which he often defended the policies of the president even when they ran counter to what he had preached for decades.
According to Bolton’s 2019 book, however, the president told him that his facial hair “was never a factor” in appointing him to any position.
When George W. Bush became president, Bolton served as the State Department’s point man on arms control, where he battled other governments on nuclear weapons tests, land mines, biological weapons, ballistic missile limits and the International Criminal Court.
An unabashed proponent of American power and a strong supporter of the Iraq war, Bolton was unable to win Senate confirmation after his nomination to the U.N. post turned off many Democrats and even some Republicans. He resigned after serving 17 months as a Bush recess appointment, which allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate confirmation.
Bolton also held positions in President Ronald Reagan’s administration.
In the run-up to the 2024 campaign, Bolton said he was motivated to run after Trump, still obsessing over his loss of the 2020 election, in 2022 called for the termination of the Constitution to reinstate him to power.
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote on his social media site, though no evidence has emerged to support his claims.
Bolton called the comment “disqualifying” and cast a possible second Trump term as a threat to national security.
He had also considered running both in 2016 as well 2012, when he later endorsed and advised the eventual GOP nominee, now-Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
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Eric Tucker contributed reporting from Washington.
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Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.