F.B.I. agents on Friday searched the home and office of John R. Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, people familiar with the investigation said, in a major escalation of 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 spokesperson also confirmed similar investigative activity at a Washington address where Mr. Bolton has an office.
The sight of federal agents searching the home of a prominent Trump critic is likely to raise fresh concerns about the degree to which Mr. Trump may be using government agencies, and the machinery of criminal justice, to pursue his critics and perceived enemies.
But such a search cannot be undertaken just by an order from the president or at the whim of an F.B.I. director. They must be authorized by a federal magistrate judge, but the court papers used to justify the search may remain sealed for some time.
A judge in Florida, for example, approved the search F.B.I. agents conducted of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents in 2022, a case in which he was eventually indicted.
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. A senior federal law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the situation said the search was part of an investigation into accusations that Mr. Bolton had leaked sensitive national security information to the news media and other parties in an effort to damage the president. The investigation includes actions Mr. Bolton took over the past four years, and not just in the earlier gathering of material for his book, the official added.
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