F.B.I. agents on Friday searched the home of John R. Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, people familiar with the investigation said, in what amounted to a major escalation in a long-running inquiry into whether he mishandled classified information.
Asked about the visible F.B.I. presence at Mr. Bolton’s home in Maryland, a spokesperson for the bureau said agents were “conducting court-authorized activity in the area.”
The investigation into Mr. Bolton seeks to determine whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information, according to two people familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the focus of the investigation.
The Trump administration leveled similar accusations years ago over Mr. Bolton’s book about his time in the White House, but they failed to gain traction with criminal investigators or the courts. A lawyer for Mr. Bolton did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
In one of his first acts after returning to the White House this year, Mr. Trump revoked Mr. Bolton’s security detail, which had been granted because of threats from Iran, including a 2022 plot in which criminal charges were filed.
During the first Trump administration, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into Mr. Bolton after publication of his 2020 book, “The Room Where It Happened.”
At first, the White House tried to block publication of the manuscript, arguing Mr. Bolton had not sought appropriate approvals. The court rejected the effort.
Separately, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas as part of a criminal investigation. While there has been little noticeable activity on the case for years, it continued into the Biden administration and has become more active in the second Trump term.
In long-running cases, conducting a search of a suspect’s home can be one of the final steps to determine if the physical evidence in the residence matches or offers additional evidence compared to what has been gathered by investigators through other means, such as reviews of the cloud data from a cellphone.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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