The FBI conducted a court-authorized search at John Bolton’s home as part of a national security investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter. CNN observed FBI personnel near the former US national security adviser’s house in the Washington, DC, area. FBI were seen speaking to a person on the porch of the house, and at least four to six agents were seen going inside. #CNN #News
00:00We learned just moments ago, according to a source that the FBI conducted a court authorized search at the home of John Bolton as part of a national security investigation. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former national security advisor under the first Trump administration, a frequent critic of late of President Trump, a frequent vocal critic of President Trump and President Trump has been a frequent vocal
00:29critic of John Bolton. Lots of bad blood between these two men. But again, learning that there is a court authorized FBI search at John Bolton's home this morning. Let's bring in Santa's Caitlin Polance. For the very latest on this, we saw pictures of officers around the home of John Bolton. What's known at this time?
00:52Well, John, we are looking at these pictures of John Bolton's home in Maryland being searched by the FBI or FBI officials going to his door to conduct a search.
01:04And we have confirmed that the FBI conducted that court authorized search, meaning that they would have gone to a court as part of a very likely criminal probe.
01:13Our understanding is this part of a national security investigation. Exactly what that would be and what sort of reasoning the Justice Department, the FBI would give the court for conducting that national security search.
01:26Still a huge question here. But this is a person that Donald Trump has been very much on the outs with since he wrote a book about his service in the first Trump administration when John Bolton was the national security advisor to President Donald Trump.
01:44At that time, Trump was very unhappy that Bolton was talking about things that Trump did that made Trump look very bad publicly, ways that Trump himself handled other foreign leaders, national security, classified issues.
01:59And Trump at that time, back in 2020, was saying that John Bolton should face criminal problems for allegedly publishing classified information.
02:09Trump was saying that any conversation with him was classified and thus none of it should have been able to be revealed in John Bolton's book.
02:16That then led to a grand jury investigation of John Bolton in the District of Columbia's federal court.
02:23It resulted in no charges. So what this is, is there a link to that situation?
02:30Is this this is official that we know has a lot of classified information over his long tenured service in government?
02:38So John Bolton now being under investigation again after not being in government for several years, we are going to have a lot of questions going forward.
02:49I've reached out to John Bolton's attorney who handled his issues through the first grand jury investigation and CNN reached Bolton directly this morning.
02:59Bolton said he was unaware of this FBI activity and was looking into it further.
03:04All right, Caitlin Poland's for us digging on this in Washington as this information continues to come in.
03:10One point Caitlin's making there. John Bolton had high profile lawyers the first time around.
03:13He himself a very accomplished lawyer as well.
03:18Just to keep in mind, those critics and supporters of him would both, I think, concede that point.
03:22Yeah. And remember, it was since since Trump came into office, he also stripped Bolton of a security clearance as well.
03:28This is not the first time that they've gone after him. I remember at the time, Bolton, I think he kind of laughed about it because it wasn't as if he was looking for any going to be leaning on that anytime soon.
03:37Let's continue covering this breaking news.
03:40Andy McCabe is sticking with us.
03:43Megan Hayes, David Urban, Caitlin Polantz here as well.
03:45Well, David, I was just looking back to just last week because John referenced it, which is the president was very unhappy with John Bolton and what he was saying, his take and his analysis of the president's meeting with Putin.
03:58I'm going to read this for you. This is what President Trump put out on social media.
04:01This was just a week ago on August 13th. Very unfair media at work on my meeting with Putin, constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that even though the meeting is on American soil, Putin has already won.
04:17What's that all about? That clearly, John, what do you think it is about John Bolton that gets so under Donald Trump's skin?
04:24Well, you know, he clearly doesn't agree with the president.
04:26He clearly, you know, attacks him on a wide variety of fronts, some justified, some perhaps not.
04:32But it's been pointed out this this doesn't stem, I don't believe, from this past week.
04:37I think this stems going back to 2020 when when John Bolton published this book and the manuscript was leaked after the National Security Council told Bolton's lawyers that it was not it could not be published because it contained classified information and it was going to be a problem.
04:55And the manuscript leaked to different news outlets. And it was a quite quite a kerfuffle.
04:59If you remember, back in 2020, it was a big deal in terms of what was being published and what wasn't.
05:04And there was a lot of questions. And so I think this is, you know, 100 percent about that and not so much about the most recent brush up between John Bolton and the president.
05:15No, but the timing, I think, will be called into question, given, of course, that John Bolton hasn't held a government job in years and years and years.
05:26And it comes following some very public criticism from the president.
05:31Andy McCabe, to you, what exactly does a court authorized search mean?
05:38What are the types of things that are searched for when officers walk into that house and in a in a normal FBI and a standard FBI?
05:50What hurdles would you have to surmount in order to get to the point where you go to a judge to ask for this warrant?
05:57Sure. So the the court authorized activity or however they're describing is only one thing.
06:07It means that the FBI has a search warrant, which means that agents who are already conducting an investigation assembled enough evidence together and presented it to a federal judge
06:19and convinced that judge that there is probable cause to believe that John Bolton's residence contains some evidence of a crime.
06:29Now, we don't know what that evidence is. We don't know what the crime is alleged to be.
06:33We don't have any of those facts at this point.
06:36But agents, you can't just go in and say to the judge, hey, I think that this guy has some classified documents around his house because he used to have an important job.
06:45That's not going to get you there. Typically, what you want for probable cause to enter a home is you want to be able to cite the testimony of a eyewitness,
06:56somebody who's already been in the home and has seen documents or who has spoken to the person and has reason to believe that they have documents.
07:02Or in the case of many national security cases where people who are in government are thought to be taking improperly materials home, something like that,
07:13those people are usually surveilled to assemble that sort of evidence to build towards a search warrant.
07:20So agents had to have some evidence here. We just don't know what that is at this point.
07:24Do we still have Caitlin Polantz, guys?
07:32Caitlin, sorry, Caitlin, lots of moving parts as always.
07:36Do we know if this search of John Bolton's home has concluded?
07:43The reporting that we have right now is that the FBI conducted the search, so it could take some time.
07:49Sometimes these searches do take some time because the FBI collects documents, information, especially in a national security probe.
07:58And, John and Kate, we do not know, again, what this would be about, what the probable cause would be that the court authorized this search for the FBI.
08:08We reached out to the FBI.
08:09They do not have a comment at this time about what is going on here.
08:15But these sorts of things, these sorts of inquiries, national security inquiries like this, where there is a search,
08:22it does often have to do with the handling of classified material.
08:27That was the issue central to John Bolton's book publication and the inquiry at that time.
08:33And, you know, there is a question here of are they looking for some sort of records at his home that would support some sort of criminal inquiry that the Justice Department is mounting.
08:45But do not forget that not only is John Bolton somebody who has been around classified information and national security information for a very long time,
08:53he's also someone that Donald Trump, as president, has very, very publicly condemned and gone against.
09:02This is not a friend of the president anymore, even though he served in that first administration.
09:07And we're waiting to hear from the White House itself on this.
09:10We'll try to get a comment from them as soon as we can.
09:12Megan Hayes, I'm old enough to remember when John Bolton was one of the attorneys on Bush versus Gore who was down in Florida trying to dig up documents.
09:21That does make me old.
09:22I'm old enough to remember when he was seen as a pariah by the left.
09:26He still is extraordinarily critical of Democrats any chances he gets.
09:30In the last election, he said he wasn't going to vote for President Trump, but he flat out refused to vote for the Democrat in the race.
09:37That's where he is politically.
09:39But where do you or what do you see when you look at this this morning?
09:43What questions do you have?
09:45I mean, without knowing what this search is for, it seems like it's a very petty act by President Trump.
09:50It looks like it's just more revenge and more retribution on his political enemies.
09:54It's unfortunate to continue to weaponize the DOJ and weaponize the FBI.
09:59I mean, they have other things I'm sure that they could be doing besides raiding his house or, you know, executing this search warrant.
10:06So to me, it just seems extremely political, extremely petty, and just a really poor use of the resources of the DOJ and the FBI.
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