Trump Denies Ordering FBI Raid of John Bolton’s Home, but Says He Knows How It Feels

An eye for an eye, a bedchamber raid for a bedchamber raid. The president of the United States and self-anointed “chief law enforcement officer,” Donald Trump, claims he doesn’t know much about the Friday morning raid at the home of his former national security advisor, John Bolton, but says he recognizes similarities to the 2022 documents search at his own Mar-a-Lago estate.“If you believe the news, which I do, I guess his house was raided today. But my house was raided, too,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a World Cup press conference inside the Oval Office on Friday. The August 8, 2022, FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago has long been a sore point for Mr. Trump. 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 said Friday. “I know the feeling is not a good feeling,” Mr. Trump added in a rare expression of sympathy for a man he describes as a “sleazebag.”On Friday morning, FBI agents appeared at the doorstep of Mr. Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home on the orders of the FBI director, Kash Patel. The raid was described as a resumption of a “national security probe” that was launched in 2020 shortly after the publication of Mr. Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” but dropped 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 tells the Sun. “NO ONE is above the law … FBI agents on mission,” Mr. Patel posted on X minutes after FBI agents arrived at Mr. Bolton’s home.FBI agents carrying cardboard boxes were seen leaving Mr. Bolton’s home Friday afternoon. It was not immediately clear if the agents had recovered any classified material. A federal search warrant was expected to be unsealed later Friday, according to an FBI official. Mr. Bolton, who served as national security advisor to Mr. Trump in 2018 and 2019, has recently rankled his former boss with comments about the president’s August 15 meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.“Trump did not lose, but Putin clearly won,” Mr. Bolton told CNN shortly afterward. In an interview with NBC News, Vice President JD Vance denied the raid on Mr. Bolton’s house was prompted by his frequent criticisms of Mr. Trump. “We’re going to be deliberate about that, because we don’t think that we should throw people — even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically — you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison,” Mr. Vance told NBC News. Mr. Trump denied any involvement in Friday’s raid, saying, “I purposefully don’t really want to get involved in it.”“I’m allowed to be our chief law enforcement officer, believe it or not. I don’t like going around saying that,” Mr. Trump told reporters Friday. 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 bestseller 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 with flattery by foreign leaders. The book, as well as Mr. Bolton’s television appearances promoting it, enraged Mr. Trump.More recently, Mr. Bolton has appeared on CNN to criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Around the time FBI agents arrived at his door Friday, Mr. Bolton continued to criticize Mr. Trump, writing on X that the president “wants a Nobel Peace Prize.”“I’m not a fan of John Bolton. I think he’s a sleazebag, actually, and he suffers major Trump Derangement Syndrome, but so do a lot of people,” Mr. Trump told reporters Friday. The first Trump administration launched its criminal investigation into Mr. Bolton shortly after the 2020 publication of “The Room Where It Happened” over allegations he had retained and disclosed classified material. Mr. Trump had unsuccessfully sued to stop the book’s publication over charges he was disclosing classified information, which Mr. Bolton denied. 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 he’d 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.

Trump Denies Ordering FBI Raid of John Bolton’s Home, but Says He Knows How It Feels

Trump Denies Ordering FBI Raid of John Bolton’s Home, but Says He Knows How It Feels

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