BETHESDA: Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the home on Friday of one of US President Donald Trump’s most outspoken critics, his former national security adviser John Bolton.

Trump, asked about the early morning FBI search of Bolton’s home, said he was “not a fan” of his former aide but did not know about the raid ahead of time.

“I saw it on television this morning,” the president told reporters during a visit to the Kennedy Center in Washington.

“He’s sort of a lowlife,” Trump said. “He’s a very quiet person, except on television if he can say something bad about Trump.”

The agents entered Bolton’s home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda early in the morning.

A police car with flashing lights was stationed outside the house, while journalists and onlookers gathered in the leafy street.

The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, posted on X: “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.” According to The New York Times and other US media outlets, the search was ordered to determine whether Bolton had illegally shared or possessed classified information.

The Washington Post said Bolton was not at home at the time of the raid and has not been charged with a crime. The now 76-year-old Bolton served as Trump’s adviser in his first term and later angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, The Room Where it Happened.

Legal efforts to block its release for allegedly containing classified information were dropped when Joe Biden replaced Trump in the White House in 2021.

Bolton has since become a highly visible and pugnacious critic of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called “unfit to be president”.

`Retribution presidency’

A longtime critic of Iran’s ruling class, Bolton was a national security hawk and has received death threats from Iranians.

The raid by the FBI came seven months after Trump stripped Bolton — and multiple other critics — of federal security details.

Asked recently in an interview with ABC whether he was worried about Trump “coming after” him, Bolton said: “He’s already come after me and several others in withdrawing the protection that we had.”

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2025