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The FBI launched a raid Friday morning at the home and office of John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 and 2019, months after Trump yanked Bolton’s security clearance in January upon taking office.
The two men have a long history of trading barbs after Bolton’s exit from Trump’s first administration, which escalated after Bolton sought to publish a memoir in 2020 that included some unflattering details about his time at the White House.
While Trump has labeled Bolton a “wacko” and a “dope,” Bolton has had his fair share of harsh words for the president.
“I don’t think he’s fit for office,” Bolton said in an interview with ABC News in June 2020, ahead of his memoir’s release. “I don’t think he has the competence to carry out the job.”
JOHN BOLTON’S HOME AND OFFICE RAIDED BY FEDERAL AGENTS
“There really isn’t any guiding principle that I was able to discern other than what’s good for Donald Trump’s reelection,” Bolton said at the time. “I think he was so focused on the reelection that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside.”
Bolton also characterized Trump as lacking focus on policy while being very fixated on himself — to the detriment of national security matters.
“His policymaking is so incoherent, so unfocused, so unstructured, so wrapped around his own personal political fortunes, that mistakes are being made that will have grave consequences for the national security of the United States,” Bolton also said in an ABC interview in June 2020.
The first Trump administration sought to block the release of Bolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” and asserted it contained classified material.
The book alleged that Trump “pleaded” with Chinese President Xi Jinping to support Trump’s reelection campaign and called the president “stunningly uninformed.”
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While the Justice Department attempted to prevent its publication on the grounds that the book disclosed classified matters pertaining to U.S. intelligence sources and methods, a federal judge signed off on the publication of the book, which ultimately was published June 23, 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump discredited Bolton’s assertions included in the book and hurled his own insults back at Bolton.
“Many of the ridiculous statements he attributes to me were never made, pure fiction,” Trump said in a social media post June 18, 2020. “Just trying to get even for firing him like the sick puppy he is!”
TRUMP REVOKES JOHN BOLTON’S SECRET SERVICE DETAIL AMID IRANIAN DEATH THREATS: FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
“Wacko John Bolton’s ‘exceedingly tedious’(New York Times) book is made up of lies & fake stories. Said all good about me, in print, until the day I fired him,” Trump said in a separate social media post on June 18, 2020. “A disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war. Never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped. What a dope!”
Bolton departed his post at the White House in September 2019. While Bolton said that he left on his own volition, Trump claimed he fired Bolton.
Bolton has remained critical of Trump and cautioned against the possibility of a second Trump presidency in 2023. For example, he said in an interview with CBS in April 2023 that it would be a “big mistake” for Republicans to back Trump again.
“It goes to the question of character and fitness for the presidency,” Bolton said in an interview with CBS.
Another edition of Bolton’s memoir dropped in 2024, which also prompted Bolton to make disparaging remarks about Trump.
“I think if you look at what Trump did in his first term — which I try and describe in the original book — you can extrapolate from that what a second term will be like, and basically it will be the same except worse,” Bolton said in a January 2024 interview with ABC News.
“All of the things that he did that rendered his presidency dangerous then are going to be even more pronounced in the second term.”
Bolton was not arrested or taken into custody after the raid on his home and office Friday.
Trump told reporters Friday that he had no knowledge of the raid and learned about it by watching TV.
“He’s a, not a smart guy,” Trump said Friday. “But he could be very unpatriotic. I mean, we’re going to find out. I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning. They did a raid.”
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