New Delhi: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is searching the home of John Bolton, US President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who has since become his fierce critic. In recent weeks, Bolton has criticised the Trump administration for the imposition of additional tariffs on India.
While Bolton’s house was being raided, FBI Director Kash Patel in a cryptic post on X said “NO ONE is above the law…FBI agents on mission”. Attorney General Pam Bondi, sharing Patel’s post, added: “America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always.” Neither Patel nor Bondi named Bolton in their social media posts.
FBI agents are conducting the search as a part of an investigation into the handling of classified documents, according to the Associated Press (AP). Bolton was reported to have been seen talking to at least two agents wearing FBI vests at the Washington building where he maintains an office, AP reported.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, his administration has revoked Bolton’s security clearances along with those of some four dozen former intelligence officials, and later withdrew the former NSA’s security detail.
In an interview with CNN earlier this month, Bolton had called the “penalty” levies imposed by Trump on India as the “worst outcome” for the US, which could potentially push New Delhi closer to Moscow and Beijing. In an interview Thursday with Hindustan Times, Bolton had pointed out that if Trump’s administration had a problem with the price cap system imposed by the G7 member-states, then the design of the system is at fault and not India.
The G7 price cap instituted at the end of 2022 was designed to ensure that the sale price of Russian crude would be below $60 a barrel. The G7 measure, however, did not stop countries from purchasing Russian crude, refining it and selling it to third countries.
Trump’s trader adviser Peter Navarro has been criticising India for purchasing Russian crude and exporting refined petroleum products to the rest of the world. Navarro and senior officials in the Trump administration have all come out against India’s continued purchase of Russian crude that touched $56 billion in the 2024-2025 financial year.
Bolton was Trump’s NSA for roughly 17 months between 2018 and 2019. The American President has asserted that he fired Bolton, but the latter said he offered to resign following a disagreement.
The two are reported to have clashed over a number of foreign policy issues including on Iran. Most recently, Trump lashed out at Bolton ahead of the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, ‘Putin has already won’,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on 13 August, two days before the summit with Putin.
Bolton was Trump’s third NSA. The two often clashed over Bolton’s more hawkish stances. The ex-NSA, according to reports, spent time attempting to restrain Trump from making agreements with perceived enemies.
He also wrote a book at the end of his tenure in Trump’s White House, called The Room Where it Happened, in 2020. The Trump administration attempted to block the publication of the book in 2020, citing national security concerns. It had also gone to the courts in an attempt to block the book’s release.
Bolton, a Republican, had junior roles in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was an undersecretary of state in President George W. Bush’s administration before being appointed as the US’ ambassador to the United Nations as a “recess appointment” without the confirmation of the Senate in 2005. He eventually vacated his post at the end of 2006.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)