Federal agents executing a search warrant at the downtown office of former National Security Adviser John Bolton in late August seized a cache of documents marked as classified, according to court documents.
The office mission was the second such search conducted by the FBI following an early-morning raid at Bolton's home. The application for the warrant at his office, according to the filing, was to search for "evidence of a crime" and to locate potential "contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed."
An inventory of the property taken at Bolton's office indicates several electronic devices, as well as a binder labeled "U.S. Dept of State Diplomatic Security," containing an "introductory security briefing prepared for the 2000-2001 transition team," were seized.
Among the other documents reportedly found, according to the inventory, were travel memos labeled "secret" and those labeled "confidential" pertaining to a U.S. mission to the United Nations and the U.S. government’s strategic communications plan.
The findings also yielded "classified" documents related to weapons of mass destruction.
NEW: Newly disclosed docs reveal more about the potentially classified information John Bolton may have had in his office. An FBI agent catalogued 5 categories — including WMDs and the UN.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 24, 2025
w/ @joshgerstein https://t.co/oggMvLB1j2 pic.twitter.com/vugA0Fjt8R
DIVE DEEPER: Kash Patel’s FBI Launches Early-Morning Raid of John Bolton’s Home: ‘No One Is Above the Law’
Politico reports that there is no indication of classified documents being obtained during the raid on Bolton's home, but investigators also retrieved numerous electronic devices there.
"Both search warrant applications indicated FBI agents were seeking evidence related to three felony offenses," they write, "including gathering, transmitting, or losing national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act and retaining classified information without permission."
🚨 MORE: FBI agents have raided John Bolton’s Washington, DC office, following the raid on his Maryland home earlier this morning. pic.twitter.com/Z7rYrytsb5
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 22, 2025
The Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2020 launched an investigation of Bolton for possibly leaking classified information in his memoir, titled “The Room Where It Happened."
Subpoenas were issued at the time, and a grand jury was convened. It was the Biden administration that stepped in to shut it down.
The latest news comes amid revelations that a foreign entity hacked Bolton's AOL email account, although specifics remain under wraps. A New York Times report a week after the raids suggests the former NSA director is in deeper trouble than simply having used classified documents for his book.
The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.
The intel community, in short, collected data from a hostile nation's intelligence service that showed Bolton sending classified U.S. intelligence to associates over a compromised unclassified system. Why does he have "people close to him" in a hostile nation? And why would he send "sensitive information" to them?
Those questions will need to be addressed as the investigation unfolds. Though it seems unlikely Bolton would be able to use the Biden defense of a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Bolton was very critical of Trump when the Biden administration conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago and ultimately charged the President with the possession of classified documents. He claimed Trump "didn't care about the classification system."
RedState will provide more information on this case as events warrant.
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