Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who served under President Donald Trump’s first administration, was the subject of FBI raids at his home and office Friday morning as federal authorities searched for classified documents. 

The raids follow a storied history between Trump and Bolton that has devolved into the pair trading repeated political blows on the public stage. 

News broke early Friday morning that FBI agents flocked around Bolton’s Maryland home and were seen carrying out boxes, which was followed hours later by the FBI raiding Bolton’s Washington, D.C., office.

‘I’m not a fan of John Bolton,’ Trump told reporters on Friday morning after the raids began, adding he saw the reports but was not aware of details on the raid ahead of time. ‘He’s a real sort of a lowlife.’

‘He’s a very quiet person, except on television, if he can say something bad about Trump,’ Trump added. ‘He’s not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.’

The remarks echo years of past comments the pair have shared in public forums airing their dissatisfactions with one another, most notably after Trump tapped Bolton to serve as his national security advisor in 2018. 

Fox News Digital took a look back at the pair’s relationship since Trump’s mad dash to fill his first administration in 2017, through his ouster of Bolton as the national security advisor and the ongoing clashes the pair have shared since. 

‘I like (Bolton),’ Trump said in 2015 while appearing on ‘Meet the Press’ just weeks after announcing his candidacy for the White House. ‘I think he’s, you know, a tough cookie, knows what he’s talking about.’

Bolton was first speculated as a likely pick to serve as Trump’s secretary of state in December 2016, when Trump was preparing for his first inauguration after his upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the election that year. Pundits touted Bolton as an experienced foreign policy hawk who could bolster Trump’s diplomatic agenda, and conservative outlets such as the National Review’s editorial board implored the Trump transition team to choose Bolton, identifying him as a ‘hard-headed realist whose focus is always the national interest.’

Trump, however, ultimately tapped Rex Tillerson to serve as secretary of state. 

Bolton showered Trump with praise of his own ahead of his confirmation as national security advisor in 2018, calling the president ‘a terrific guy’ who ‘knows a lot’ when the administration kicked off in 2017. 

The warm relationship got cozier when Trump announced in 2018 on X that he called on Bolton to serve as his national security advisor 

‘I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.’

‘I didn’t really expect that announcement this afternoon,’ Bolton said on Fox News shortly after the announcement. ‘But it’s obviously a great honor and always an honor to serve our country.’

The pair found common ground on issues such as withdrawing the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, which was an Obama-era agreement with other world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities. 

Trump ultimately pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018, slamming it as a ‘horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,’ and was backed by his hawkish group of foreign policy advisors, such as Bolton and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

Bolton’s relationship with Trump began to sour as he advanced hard-line strategies toward U.S. adversaries, including Iran and North Korea. He had long advocated regime change in Tehran, though he later clarified in his role as national security advisor that American policy was ‘not regime change,’ but rather a push for ‘massive change in the regime’s behavior.’ Trump, by contrast, initially favored a more diplomatic path, urging that flaws he saw in the Iran nuclear deal be renegotiated before ultimately deciding to withdraw from the agreement altogether. 

‘John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him, he’d take on the whole world at one time, okay?’ Trump said of Bolton in June 2019, underscoring the bubbling tensions between the two on foreign policy. 

In April 2018, Bolton suggested North Korea follow Libya’s example of denuclearization, which he called the ‘Libya model,’ and included the country giving up its nuclear weapons in 2003 in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Bolton’s comments about such a model for North Korea set off condemnation in Pyongyang as they raised concerns this would lead to potential regime change. 

Trump cited the comment following Bolton’s abrupt exit from the White House in September 2019. 

‘We were set back very badly when John Bolton talked about the Libyan model … what a disaster,’ Trump told reporters at the time. 

Days ahead of Bolton’s ouster, Trump was slated to meet with Taliban leaders in an effort to negotiate peace in Afghanistan, but the meeting never took place and Bolton reportedly slammed such an effort in conversations with Trump, media outlets reported at the time. 

Bolton was ousted from his role as national security advisor Sept. 10, 2019, with Trump characterizing the departure as a firing, and Bolton saying he tendered his resignation and was not fired. 

‘I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House,’ Trump tweeted in 2019. ‘I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.’

Bolton shot back on X that he ‘offered to resign last night and President Trump said, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

The former national security advisor was replaced by Robert C. O’Brien, with Trump and Bolton continuing their contentious relationship years later. 

The raid on Bolton’s home is part of the ‘early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton,’ Vice President JD Vance said Friday during an appearance on ‘Meet the Press.’ Bolton was not arrested or in custody amid the early morning raids. 

The searches are focused on potential classified documents agents believe Bolton may still possess, Fox News reported. 

FBI agents raided the Bethesda, Md., home of former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday morning, marking a new tension point in his difficult relationship with President Donald Trump. Agents also raided Bolton’s D.C. office.

The reason behind the raids was reportedly linked to a probe of allegations that Bolton sent classified documents to his family from a private email server while working at the White House, according to the New York Post. The Post cited a Trump administration official who said FBI Director Kash Patel ordered the raid.

The outlet also reported that yet-to-be-unsealed search warrants reference a controversy over his memoir to establish a pattern of behavior. However, a senior U.S. official told the Post the probe was a ‘clean break’ from the investigation regarding Bolton’s book.

Shortly after the raid began, Patel wrote on X that ‘no one is above the law… [FBI] agents on a mission.’

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino shared the post and wrote, ‘Public corruption will not be tolerated.’

Bolton, who served in Trump’s first administration, has not been arrested or taken into custody. Trump revoked his security clearance and Secret Service detail in January 2025.

Trump was asked about the raid on Friday and said he did not know about it ahead of time, claiming he saw it on television. The president then made clear his disdain for his former national security adviser.

‘I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real lowlife,’ Trump told reporters. He went on to call Bolton ‘not a smart guy’ and said ‘he could be very unpatriotic.’

The president also said Bolton was ‘a very quiet person except on television if he can say something bad about Trump.’

Vice President JD Vance told ‘Meet the Press’ on Friday that ‘we’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton.’ Vance denied Bolton was being targeted for criticizing Trump.

A source familiar with the Bolton raid and the evidence used to justify it told Fox News Digital that ‘Bolton really had some nerve to attack Trump over his handling of classified information,’ but would not give more details.

Bolton criticized Trump’s handling of classified documents after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022. Trump was later indicted on 37 felony counts, which expanded to 40 before the case was dropped in July 2024.

During Trump’s first administration, a probe into classified documents was launched but later shut down by the Biden administration. The Justice Department argued that Bolton’s 2020 memoir, ‘The Room Where it Happened,’ contained classified material and attempted to block it from being published. 

The FBI and Bolton’s office declined to comment on the matter.

Reporting contributed by Axios and Fox News’ Michael Dorgan, David Spunt, Breanne Deppisch, Emma Woodhead and Brooke Singman.

As the 11th member of former President Joe Biden’s administration appeared before the House Oversight Committee this week, Fox News Digital asked senators on Capitol Hill if former Vice President Kamala Harris should testify next. 

‘I think they should take her behind closed doors and figure out what she knows and what she’s willing to talk about,’ Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said. 

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is leading the investigation into the alleged cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline and use of the autopen during his tenure as president. 

Comer said on Fox News’ ‘The Ingraham Angle’ last month that the ‘odds’ of Harris getting a subpoena to appear before the House Oversight Committee are ‘very high.’ 

While Marshall told Fox News Digital that Harris should testify, he admitted, ‘I don’t think you need her testimony to show Americans what I knew as a physician a long time ago, that Joe Biden had a neurodegenerative disease of some sort.’

Marshall has a medical degree from the University of Kansas and practiced medicine for more than 25 years before running for public office. 

‘All you had to do is look at his very fixed, flat face,’ Marshall explained. ‘Look at his gait, the way he walked. He had a shuffled walk. He didn’t move his arms, hardly at all. When he talked, it was very monotone, a very soft voice. He had malingering thought processes. I don’t think it took much to figure that out.’

After listing the former president’s symptoms, the Kansas senator lamented that Biden ‘turned weakness into war,’ creating a national security threat. 

During Biden’s presidency, the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the death of 13 U.S. soldiers, Russia invaded Ukraine and Hamas attacked Israel, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

But as Republicans demand transparency, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital he is far more worried about the ‘challenges we face right now,’ particularly on the economy, inflation and the effect of Trump’s tariff policies. 

Meanwhile, Sen. John Hoeven R-N.D., defended the accountability argument, telling Fox News Digital that Americans ‘always want more information and more transparency.’

‘If you’re involved in an administration, you [should] always be willing to come in and say what you did and why you did it, and you know what it’s all about. I mean, that’s how it works, and that’s what the American people want,’ he said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden and Harris for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson criticized on Thursday what she said were the ‘recent tendencies’ of the Supreme Court to side with the Trump administration, providing her remarks in a bitter dissent in a case related to National Institutes of Health grants.

Jackson, a Biden appointee, rebuked her colleagues for ‘lawmaking’ on the shadow docket, where an unusual volume of fast, preliminary decisionmaking has taken place related to the hundreds of lawsuits President Donald Trump’s administration has faced.

‘This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins,’ Jackson wrote.

The liberal justice pointed to the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of Calvinball, which describes it as the practice of applying rules inconsistently for self-serving purposes.

Jackson, the high court’s most junior justice, said the majority ‘[bent] over backwards to accommodate’ the Trump administration by allowing the NIH to cancel about $783 million in grants that did not align with the administration’s priorities.

Some of the grants were geared toward research on diversity, equity and inclusion; COVID-19; and gender identity. Jackson argued the grants went far beyond that and that ‘life-saving biomedical research’ was at stake.

‘So, unfortunately, this newest entry in the Court’s quest to make way for the Executive Branch has real consequences, for the law and for the public,’ Jackson wrote.

The Supreme Court’s decision was fractured and only a partial victory for the Trump administration.

In a 5-4 decision greenlighting, for now, the NIH’s existing grant cancellations, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the three liberal justices. In a second 5-4 decision that keeps a lower court’s block on the NIH’s directives about the grants intact, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, sided with Roberts and the three liberals. The latter portion of the ruling could hinder the NIH’s ability to cancel future grants.

The varying opinions by the justices came out to 36 pages total, which is lengthy relative to other emergency rulings. Jackson’s dissent made up more than half of that.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley observed in an op-ed last month a rise in ‘rhetoric’ from Jackson, who garnered a reputation as the most vocal justice during oral arguments upon her ascension to the high court.

‘The histrionic and hyperbolic rhetoric has increased in Jackson’s opinions, which at times portray her colleagues as abandoning not just the Constitution but democracy itself,’ Turley said.

Barrett had sharp words for Jackson in a recent highly anticipated decision in which the Supreme Court blocked lower courts from imposing universal injunctions on the government. Barrett accused Jackson of subscribing to an ‘imperial judiciary’ and instructed people not to ‘dwell’ on her colleague’s dissent.

Barrett, the lone justice to issue the split decision in the NIH case, said challenges to the grants should be brought by the grant recipients in the Court of Federal Claims.

But Barrett said ‘both law and logic’ support that the federal court in Massachusetts does have the authority to review challenges to the guidance the NIH issued about grant money. Barrett joined Jackson and the other three in denying that portion of the Trump administration’s request, though she said she would not weigh in at this early stage on the merits of the case as it proceeds through the lower courts.

Jackson was dissatisfied with this partial denial of the Trump administration’s request, saying it was the high court’s way of preserving the ‘mirage of judicial review while eliminating its purpose: to remedy harms.’

Longtime Republican consultant Roger Stone lambasted Trump adviser-turned-staunch-critic John Bolton following the FBI raid on his Bethesda, Maryland residence on Friday.

‘Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 o’clock in the morning?’ Stone riffed on X, six years after the Biden FBI raided his own Fort Lauderdale home in an operation to which CNN was reportedly tipped off to.

‘Wait! Where was CNN?’ added Stone, who has often criticized Republicans who become disloyal to President Donald Trump.

‘What goes around comes around- and Roger Stone still ‘did nothing wrong,’’ he said, quoting the catchphrase and shirts that were circulated after his 2019 raid.

Stone, who began his political career volunteering for 1964 presidential nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., before moving on to advising President Richard Nixon, also posted a photo of himself from his arrest wearing a ‘Roger Stone Did Nothing Wrong’ shirt.

Stone continued his critique of Bolton later Friday morning with another X post that included a split photo of the two men:

‘The man on the left had his home rated at 6 am because he did something wrong. The man on the right had his home raided at 6 am because he didn’t. Karma is b—-.’

He later released a mock statement claiming Bolton admitted his signature mustache was ‘appropriated from a member of the Village People.’

Bolton, who held diplomatic posts under Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush before joining President Donald Trump’s first administration, later broke with Trump over his handling of COVID-19, his approach to diplomacy, and the impeachment saga.

Trump often returned fire at Bolton after their messy breakup, and Stone occasionally chimed in to defend his longtime friend from New York.

After Bolton attacked Trump’s choice of Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, calling her a ‘serious threat to national security’ – Stone returned fire.

‘Watching war pig John Bolton attack the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as DNI makes me all the more certain that she is precisely the right person for the job,’ Stone said in November.

After the raid on Bolton’s home, FBI agents were also seen in DuPont Circle, D.C., removing boxes from the Baltimore native’s personal office.

The FBI launched a raid Friday morning into 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 following Bolton’s exit from Trump’s first administration — all of which escalated after Bolton sought to publish a memoir in 2020 that included some unflattering details about his time in 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.’ 

‘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’ Chinese President Xi Jinping to support Trump’s reelection campaign, and called the president ‘stunningly uninformed.’ 

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!’ 

‘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 due to his own volition, Trump claimed that he fired Bolton. 

Bolton was not arrested or taken into custody following the raid on his home and office Friday.

Trump told reporters Friday that he had no knowledge of the raid and learned about it watching TV. 

‘He’s a, not a smart guy,’ Trump said Friday. ‘But he could be a 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.’ 

The Trump administration began handing over documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s case to the House Oversight Committee on Friday, a spokesperson for the panel said.

House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has committed to making the documents public in the interest of transparency, albeit after a committee review for sensitive information related to Epstein’s victims.

‘The production contains thousands of pages of documents. The Trump DOJ is providing records at a far quicker pace than anything the Biden DOJ ever provided,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

‘The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.’

The spokesperson added that the Trump DOJ was complying with Comer’s subpoena at a quicker pace than former Biden administration Attorney General Merrick Garland did in handing over materials related to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into ex-President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.

House investigators originally requested the Department of Justice (DOJ) produce a tranche of files pertaining to the late pedophile and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, by 12 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 19. 

It’s part of a wider bipartisan investigation into the handling of Epstein’s case, which has also reached several former attorneys general, FBI directors, and former first couple Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Comer announced Monday afternoon that he would delay the deadline until Friday in light of the DOJ’s cooperation.

‘Officials with the Department of Justice have informed us that the Department will begin to provide Epstein-related records to the Oversight Committee this week on Friday. There are many records in DOJ’s custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,’ Comer said in a statement.

‘I appreciate the Trump administration’s commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter.’

Requested materials included all documents and communications in the DOJ’s possession relating to both Epstein and Maxwell, as well as files ‘further relating or referring to human trafficking, exploitation of minors, sexual abuse, or related activity.’

Documents relating specifically to the DOJ’s prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell, Epstein’s 2007 non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida, and any materials related to Epstein’s death were requested.

The House Oversight Committee asked for the documents to be largely unredacted, according to a subpoena obtained by Fox News Digital, ‘except for redactions to protect the personally identifiable information of victims, for any child sex abuse material as defined by the Department of Justice Manual, and any other redactions required by law.’

The deadline comes a day after former Attorney General Bill Barr was deposed by the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors. Barr was the first person scheduled to appear in the committee’s probe under subpoena.

The Clintons both have separate deposition dates scheduled for October.

Comer was directed to send the flurry of subpoenas after a House Oversight Committee subcommittee panel voted in favor of them during an unrelated hearing in July.

Renewed furor over Epstein’s case engulfed Capitol Hill after intra-GOP fallout over the Trump administration’s handling of the matter.

The DOJ effectively declared the case closed after an ‘exhaustive review,’ revealing Epstein had no ‘client list,’ did not blackmail ‘prominent individuals,’ and confirmed he did die by suicide in a New York City jail while awaiting prosecution.

In response to the backlash by some on the right, Trump directed the DOJ to release grand jury testimony related to Epstein – a request that’s been tied up in courts since then – while Attorney General Pam Bondi had her deputy, Todd Blanche, interview Maxwell in person to uncover any possible new information.

Comer also subpoenaed Maxwell but agreed to defer her scheduled deposition until after the Supreme Court heard her appeal to overturn her conviction.

Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ for comment but did not immediately hear back.