The FBI’s recent raid on John Bolton’s home has unveiled a considerable amount of seized materials, including documents located across various electronic devices. A detailed list, which has surfaced from court documents, identifies more than twelve items taken from the former national security adviser’s Bethesda, Marylandhome. Among the technology collected were two iPhones—one red, the other black—three computers (including a silver Dell XPS laptop and a Dell Precision Tower Model 3620), and two Sandisk 64GB USB drives. They also seized a Seagate hard drive and even photographed a white binder labeled “Statement and Reflection on the Alliance Strike…” placing it in a folder marked “Trump I-IV.”
The search, conducted on August 22, is believed to be linked to an inquiry surrounding potentially classified documents, particularly related to Bolton’s 2020 memoir, “The Room That It Happened.” The Biden administration had previously halted investigations into classified materials initiated during Trump’s presidency, stating that Bolton’s book included sensitive information.
Interestingly, just days after the raid, Bolton publicly criticized Trump’s approach to Ukraine, describing it as marked by “confusion, hurry, confusion,” in an opinion piece published in the Washington Examiner. He expressed concerns that Trump’s push for a swift peace deal was, perhaps inevitably, bound to fail—especially in light of recent events like the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When asked about the raid, Trump did not hold back on his criticisms of Bolton, calling him a “real low-life” and expressing his lack of fondness for the former adviser. He claimed he had learned about the FBI’s actions through the news and had no prior knowledge of the operation, characterizing Bolton as “not a clever man” and suggesting he might even be “very unpatriotic.”
Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, but their relationship deteriorated, leading to Trump revoking Bolton’s security clearance and access to Secret Service in January 2025.
