FBI agents have raided and searched the
home of President Trump's former
national security adviser, John Bolton.
Reports say the search was ordered to
determine if Mr. Bolton had illegally
shared or possessed classified
information. John Bolton worked for
President Trump in his first term, but
has since become one of his most
outspoken critics. Well, this is the
scene live outside the house in the
Washington suburb of Bethesda. In a
statement, the FBI said it was
conducting court authorized activity in
the area. In the last hour or so, the
deputy director of the FBI, Dan Mongino,
posted on ex public corruption will not
be tolerated, and he reposted an earlier
post by the director of the FBI, Cash
Patel, who'd said, "No one is above the
law. FBI agents on a mission." Let's go
live to the White House and our North
America correspondent, Brent Dusman. But
we've seen also activity outside John
Bolton's Washington office. Just tell us
what we know.
>> Well, so far we can say that at least
partially these searches both at John B
John Bolton's office here in Washington
and at his home in Bethesda, Maryland,
which is about half an hour away or at
least in part about the handling of
classified documents. Now, we don't have
more details than that, but this is an
issue that's been ongoing for for quite
some time. Uh in the past uh John Bolton
wrote a book uh which was subject to a
lawsuit by the Department of Justice
which accused him of mishandling
classified information about his time
here at the White House in 2018 and
2019. That lawsuit was subsequently
dropped, but he's still very much been
in the sights of the administration and
President Trump in particular.
>> And and what have we actually seen FBI
officials doing today?
Well, at his house in Maryland, um we
the the area has been quite cordoned
off, but we have seen images of FBI
agents removing boxes from his house.
Now, what's in those boxes, we don't
quite know yet, but at the moment at
least, we know that that he's not been
charged with anything or detained in any
way. Uh but we'll we're looking for more
clarity on that later today.
>> And has he commented at all yet?
>> He so far hasn't commented. We, the BBC
and other U and US media outlets have
reached out to him, but he's so far been
quiet. But I I can tell you that even as
the search was taking place, he was
posting on X about other unrelated
matters. Uh he was posting about the war
in Ukraine. Uh he's been very critical
in the last few days over the Trump
administration's handling of the war in
Ukraine. And he kept that up this
morning saying that he thinks many of
these negotiations are because Donald
Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize. He
didn't comment directly on the search or
even allude to it. uh so far today
>> and the US attorney general Pam Bondi
has also been posting saying America's
safety isn't negotiable justice will be
pursued always has there been any wider
political comment or reaction as yet
>> not quite yet I think Washington is
still very much waking up to this this
news but in the past there has been
quite a lot of concern that Bolton and
other figures some many of whom were in
the first Trump administration uh would
be kind of targeted by the by the
administration which which sees them as
critics. Uh Cash Patel, the now FBI
director, specifically listed Bolton as
as one of the members of the quote
unquote deep state that he has
repeatedly said he hopes to clean out
from Washington. Uh but there's been
very little kind of direct comment from
from them other than those posts that
that you mentioned. Uh and there's been
very little reaction so far, but I think
over the course of the day, we'll be
seeing a lot of reaction both from
supporters and critics of President
Trump about this search at Bolton's
house.
>> Yeah. And and if there is concern that
this is politically motivated, I mean,
does John Bolton have any legal options
to stop this?
>> Well, at at the moment, it's it's not
really clear where things could go
legally, as Bolton hasn't been formally
charged with anything. Um this
administration has made a point though
that they would kind of uh seek out
people they see as endangering national
security uh by for example mishandling
documents or people who are
whistleblowers for example uh which has
been subject to some legal challenge but
at the moment it's still quite too early
to say exactly what the next steps are
here legally but one suspects that if
there are charges down the line or a
further investigation then John Bolton
would uh who's been extremely critical
of this administation ation would defend
himself in court as much as possible.
>> Bernard Mooseman, thank you very much.
will stay up to date of course with you
and there is a live page up and running
on all the latest that's on the BBC News
website and app and uh there's some of
the images there of the FBI agents
carrying boxes at the house and offices
of John Bolton.