How John Bolton’s controversial 2020 memoir sparked first federal probe of ex-Trump national security adviser

WASHINGTON — Friday’s FBI raid of the home and office of President Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, came more than five years after the 45th president’s administration began probing possible disclosures of classified information in his 2020 memoir.

Bolton, now 76, served as Trump’s third national security adviser from April 2018 until his firing in September 2019, after which he began drafting a tell-all about his time in the Trump White House.

The book, “The Room Where It Happened,” was released in June 2020 following a prolonged review by the White House National Security Council that delayed publication.

In April and May 2020, Bolton’s words were scrutinized by members of the NSC — including Ellen Knight, a staff member detailed from the National Archives who specialized in classification.

Bolton claimed Knight gave him verbal approval to publish the book even while a “supplemental” review was ongoing.

On June 17, 2020, however, the Justice Department sought an emergency court order blocking publication of “The Room Where It Happened.”

The White House also filed a civil suit against Bolton demanding the release date — set for six days later — be shifted back.

The Trump administration claimed Bolton broke a non-disclosure agreement signed as a condition of his employment. 

The ex-adviser’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, accused the administration, in turn, of undertaking a “politically motivated exercise in futility.”

A federal judge ruled in Bolton’s favor and the book was published on June 23, 2020, but Bolton became the target of a subsequent federal criminal probe for allegedly disclosing sensitive national security information, The New York Times reported that September.

After former President Joe Biden took office in 2021, the Bolton probe was shut down that June “for political reasons,” a senior US official told The Post Friday.

A Justice Department effort to recoup profits from the book was also dismissed after attorneys for Knight submitted a letter to the federal judge overseeing that case, claiming she had been pressured by the Trump White House to falsely declare “The Room Where It Happened” contained classified information.

After refusing to play along, Knight claimed, she was passed over for a permanent NSC position.

Bolton’s residence in Bethesda, Md., was raided by FBI agents in connection with a probe involving classified documents, with FBI Director Kash Patel posting on X contemporaneously, “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.”

US officials familiar with the investigation have said it is not limited to Bolton’s book, with one saying it has evolved into a “larger classified leaking probe that extended into the Biden administration.”

Trump has criticized Bolton as a “nutjob” and “moron,” while Bolton has frequently appeared on CNN to return fire over the 47th president’s foreign policy decisions.

The morning of the raid, Bolton posted a message on his X account criticizing Trump’s attempts to end the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

“[M]eetings will continue because Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, but I don’t see these talks making any progress,” the message from the ex-adviser read in part.

“I thought he was a sleazebag, actually,” Trump told reporters of Bolton. “And he suffers major Trump Derangement Syndrome, but so do a lot of people and they’re not being affected by anything we do.”

Trump stripped Bolton of his security clearance and Secret Service detail in January — despite threats from Iran targeting the ex-adviser in the wake of the US drone strike that assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

Bolton is one of many former US officials listed in Patel’s 2023 book “Government Gangsters” as “Members of the Executive Branch Deep State.”

The FBI boss has pledged to root out corruption in the executive branch since taking office, including those related to the FBI’s investigation of collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.