When federal agents armed with a search warrant showed up at John R. Bolton’s home outside Washington at dawn on Friday, it was a display of one of the government’s most intimidating powers, in this case deployed against a fierce and high-profile critic of President Trump.
It is not yet clear what evidence the Justice Department cited in convincing a federal judge to sign off on the search warrant, or what culpability Mr. Bolton might have in an on-and-off investigation into whether he mishandled classified information dating back to when he served as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser during the president’s first term.
But the episode illustrated how Mr. Trump’s campaign of retribution has undercut the principle that law enforcement should keep a substantial distance from politics, stoking questions about whether even legitimate investigations are colored by the president’s insistence on putting his perceived enemies through the same treatment he faced as a target of multiple inquiries.
From Mr. Trump’s first term, he was repeatedly warned by aides — including his White House counsel and chief of staff at the time — that he should refrain from publicly accusing his enemies of breaking the law.
Among the reasons, aides told him, was that some day, when one of his enemies did do something wrong, the public might not believe it because there would be a perception that the accusation stemmed from Mr. Trump’s drive for retribution.
“For all we know, the investigation into John Bolton‘s conduct may be rock solid, but Trump’s Justice Department has lost any presumption of regularity,” said Barbara L. McQuade, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and a U.S. attorney during the Obama administration.
“One of the reasons prosecutors keep their mouths shut about politics is so that if and when investigative activity is undertaken, there will be no appearance of bias,” she said. “In light of all of the threats the Trump administration has made to target his enemies, they have lost any presumption of good faith.”
In his seven months back in office, Mr. Trump and his administration have used a whole-of-government approach to go after his perceived enemies as well as people and institutions he sees as impeding his agenda, including academic institutions, news organizations and law firms. In doing so, they have not only in many cases put legal and financial pressure on their targets but also sent broader signals about the hefty costs that criticism of Mr. Trump could incur.
In the case of the search of Mr. Bolton’s home, the developments were accompanied by almost gleeful statements from administration officials. Mr. Trump’s F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, who before taking office listed Mr. Bolton as a member of an executive branch “deep state,” posted on social media: “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.” The deputy F.B.I. director, Dan Bongino, reposted Mr. Patel, saying: “Public corruption will not be tolerated.”
Mr. Trump’s retribution campaign has long focused on putting his perceived enemies through what he believes he unfairly endured as he was investigated, first by a special counsel during his first term and later by federal and state prosecutors during the Biden administration. In some ways, the search of Mr. Bolton’s home mirrors the F.B.I.’s 2022 search of Mr. Trump’s Florida home and private club, Mar-a-Lago, to retrieve classified documents he had kept and refused to return after leaving office.
Executing a search warrant at an individual’s home is considered among federal law enforcement’s greatest powers. It casts the specter of criminality over the person whose home is being searched, as it typically creates scenes of F.B.I. agents — wearing their trademark windbreakers with the bureau’s initials emblazoned on the back — going in and out of the person’s home.
Exactly those images were beamed out from coverage at Mr. Bolton’s home on Friday, as journalists assembled outside to provide live updates on the search. Agents later appeared to be entering Mr. Bolton’s office in Washington.
For the F.B.I. to have obtained a search warrant, an agent has to provide an affidavit to a federal judge, who would then have to rule that there was probable cause that there was evidence on the premises that a crime had been committed.
Mr. Bolton has a long and contentious history with Mr. Trump. He served as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, often finding himself at odds with the president and his aides. He documented his experience in a book, “The Room Where it Happened,” which painted the president as an uninformed leader with authoritarian instincts. It was published only after the administration engaged in a lengthy review of whether it contained classified information.
A foreign policy hawk, Mr. Bolton is a frequent guest on cable television news, where he typically sharply criticizes Mr. Trump, especially on his handling of Russia, a topic that has been front and center in recent weeks.
In the run-up to the 2024 election, Mr. Bolton again warned about why he believed Mr. Trump was unfit to be president, although he refused to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
When Mr. Trump returned to power in early 2024, Mr. Trump stacked his administration with officials like Mr. Patel who openly embraced his retribution agenda.
During the time Mr. Bolton worked in the first Trump administration, he helped put together plans that led to Mr. Trump ordering the killing of a top Iranian general. Because of Mr. Bolton’s role in those plans, there was intelligence showing that the Iranians wanted to kill him. To protect Mr. Bolton, the federal government provided him with a security detail throughout the Biden administration.
But just a day after being sworn in, Mr. Trump stripped Mr. Bolton of his security detail.
Despite losing his security, Mr. Bolton continued to publicly take on Mr. Trump, including as the F.B.I. raid occurred on Friday.
Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations.
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