Search warrant reveals what feds seized at John Bolton’s home

by Elizabeth Crisp - 09/04/25 3:02 PM ET

Federal agents who raided former national security adviser John Bolton’s home last month seized multiple computers and phones, a hard drive and a trove of documents including a “white binder labeled ‘statements and reflections to allied strikes,'” new court records revealed Thursday.

Bolton, a vocal critic of President Trump, has not been charged with a crime and was not detained after FBI agents raided his house in Bethesda, Md., on Aug. 22. The search was reportedly related to Bolton’s handling of classified information as he penned his 2020 memoir “The Room Where It Happened” about his time in the first Trump administration.

The new court filing outlines the items obtained by the Justice Department during its search of Bolton’s home and its efforts to keep the information confidential. Videos posted online showed agents in FBI jackets carrying multiple boxes outside Bolton’s home amid the search.

According to the itemized list of materials collected during the raid, authorities took two iPhones that belonged to Bolton, folders containing documents that were labeled “Trump I-IV” and four boxes of printed daily activities. They also confiscated two USB drives, two laptops and a desktop computer.

Bolton was Trump’s top national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, when the president fired him via social media without elaborating on disagreements that led to their fallout.

Trump revoked Bolton’s security clearance at the start of his second administration in January. The president has maintained he did not know about the FBI search before it took place on Aug. 22.

“He’s not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy,” Trump told reporters. “I know nothing about it — I just saw it this morning that they did a raid.”

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In an op-ed that the Washington Examiner published after the raid, Bolton wrote that the second Trump administration was trying “to camouflage its disarray.” He compared the ordeal to Trump’s handling of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

“Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy today is no more coherent than it was last Friday when his administration executed search warrants against my home and office,” Bolton wrote