President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton spoke out after the FBI raided his home last week, taking aim at the president’s stance on the war in Russia and Ukraine.
The FBI raided the Trump adviser-turned-critic’s home in Bethesda, Maryland and office in Washington, D.C. on Friday morning as part of an investigation related to classified documents.
In his first comments since the raid, Bolton wrote an op-ed Monday in the Washington Examiner slamming Trump’s Russia-Ukraine policies following his meetings with the country’s respective leaders.
“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 began. “Collapsing in confusion and haste, Trump’s negotiations may be in their last throes, along with his Nobel Peace Prize campaign.”
Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 in Alaska. “Trump’s furious pace trying to move an extraordinarily complex conflict to resolution over the past two weeks was one of several significant mistakes,” Bolton said.
The meeting, which many considered as a victory for Putin, resulted in no ceasefire deal.
Following that summit, Trump made a “stunning about-face,” his former national security adviser continued, noting the U.S. president abandoned his prior threats of imposing sanctions or tariffs if there was no agreement.
Days later, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a group of European leaders at the White House. He then announced he planned to arrange a trilateral meeting with Putin, Zelensky and himself.
“None of this was realistic, and no meeting appears likely anytime soon,” Bolton blasted.
He then concluded that the U.S. president’s “efforts over the last two-plus weeks may have left us further from peace and a just settlement for Ukraine than before.”
The Independent has asked the White House for comment on Bolton’s piece.
Hours after Friday’s FBI raids, Trump said he wasn’t aware of them until after they happened. “I saw it on television this morning,” he told reporters. The president noted that he “wasn’t a fan” of Bolton.
“My house was raided also,” Trump said, referring to the FBI raid of his Mar-a-Lago compound in 2022. “So I know the feeling. It’s not a good feeling.”
Just weeks prior to the raids, Bolton accused Trump of running a “retribution presidency.” Earlier this year, the U.S. president revoked Bolton’s security detail, which he received following threats against his life from Iran.
The former national security adviser isn’t alone; in his second term, Trump has targeted his so-called political enemies, including law firms, news organizations, former government officials, ideological opponents, and universities.
However, Trump and Bolton have had a feud since 2019, when the president asked his national security adviser to resign. Bolton then wrote a book, which Trump tried to halt from being published, alleging he shared classified information from his time in the White House.
A judge found that Bolton “likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations” but allowed the memoir to be published. The Justice Department also launched a criminal investigation into whether Bolton disclosed classified information in his book. Both probes were dropped under the Biden administration.
Vice President JD Vance suggested there was a new probe into Bolton, telling NBC’s Meet the Press last week that the investigation is in “the very early stages.” Classified documents are “certainly part of” that probe, but that “there’s a broad concern about Ambassador Bolton,” he said.
The vice president rejected that the raid exemplified retribution against a vocal Trump critic.
“I suspect that if the media and the American people let this case actually unfold, if they let the investigation unfold, as it’s currently doing, they’re going to find out that what we’re doing is being very deliberate and being very driven by the national interest, and by the law here and that’s as it should be,” he said.
