Federal investigators discovered multiple documents marked “secret,” “confidential,” and “classified” during a search last month of the office of a former national security advisor, John Bolton, according to newly released court filings. 

The documents include materials that reference weapons of mass destruction, diplomatic travel memos, records from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and other sensitive government materials, according to an inventory of items filed in federal court. 

The discovery raises the possibility of criminal charges against Mr. Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser who departed the White House abruptly in September 2019 amid escalating policy disagreements with the president.

Federal agents searched Mr. Bolton’s downtown Washington, D.C., office on August 22 as part of an investigation into whether he unlawfully removed and retained classified documents, according to search warrants filed in federal court. That same morning, agents also searched Mr. Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, residence, though no classified documents were found there.

Mr. Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the seized records were “cleared for his client’s use” and represent the “kind of ordinary records, many of which are 20 years old or more, that would be kept by a 40-year career official who served at the State Department, as an Assistant Attorney General, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and the National Security Advisor.”

Mr. Lowell, however, did not say whether the documents had been marked as declassified. 

Mr. Bolton found himself at odds with the president in 2020 after he wrote a tell-all memoir titled “The Room Where It Happened” that presented an unflattering account of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy dealings. The Department of Justice sought to block the book’s publication, filing a lawsuit alleging it contained classified national security information and that Mr. Bolton had violated his non-disclosure agreements.

The Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the book’s release were unsuccessful, and the the Biden administration dropped the case in 2021 after taking office. 

President Trump denied that he had prior knowledge of the August 22 search, telling reporters, “I don’t know about it” and only “saw it on television this morning.” 

Vice President JD Vance confirmed later that day that the administration was “in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton in relation to a classified documents probe,” but insisted that the probe was not politically driven. 

“If they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law,” Mr. Vance stated. “You shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing.”