The FBI on Friday raided the Maryland home and Washington office of John Bolton, former national security adviser under US President Donald Trump, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.
The searches were part of an investigation into the handling of classified information. However, Bolton has not been charged and was not detained, the person told AP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
The search came shortly after Bolton openly criticised Trump’s trade moves against India, especially the additional 25 per cent tariffs over Russia oil imports that raised the total levy to 50 per cent.
Speaking ahead of Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, Bolton warned that US tariffs risked driving India closer to Moscow and Beijing.
“When Trump slapped tariffs on India for buying Russian oil, but not China which also purchases Russia oil, it may have pushed India further into the Beijing-Moscow axis. This lack of focus by the Trump Admin is an unforced error,” Bolton wrote on X.
Long history of clashes with Trump
Bolton, who served as Trump’s third national security adviser for 17 months, often disagreed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea, reported AP.
He later faced scrutiny for his memoir The Room Where It Happened, which the Justice Department initially claimed revealed classified information before dropping its case in 2021.
The book painted Trump as “grossly ill-informed” on foreign policy, accusing him of seeing “conspiracies behind rocks” and lacking basic knowledge of governance.
Trump hit back by calling Bolton a “crazy” warmonger who “would have led the country into World War Six.”
When John Bolton went all out on Trump
In an earlier interview with HT, Bolton described Trump as an “aberrational president” and said the India-US relationship was in “a very bad place.” He further accused Washington of pursuing a “confused” approach toward New Delhi.
Indians were “incandescent” at being targeted with a 25 per cent penalty while China, which imports far more Russian energy, faced no such sanctions, ther former Trump advisor remarked in an CNN interview.
Bolton highlighted the potential consequences of Trump’s tariff strategy, pointing to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expected visit to India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s planned trip to China later this year.
“Obviously both Moscow and Beijing are going to try to bring India closer to them. I mean, this could have negative consequences (for the US), because it wasn’t well thought through,” he said.
In an ABC interview earlier this month, Bolton alleged that Trump had targeted him personally. “I think it is a retribution presidency,” Bolton said, recalling that Trump had already removed his security detail in what he described as retaliation.
(With AP, PTI inputs)
