The federal raid on John Bolton’s home last month stemmed from evidence the U.S. obtained by hacking a foreign government that had previously hacked the former national security adviser’s AOL account, NBC News reported Friday.
Newsmax reported last month that the FBI’s raid and investigation focused on the handling of classified documents and national security secrets. NBC News reported that the evidence came from a dump of Bolton’s emails that the feds collected from an adversarial foreign government during the Biden administration.
Biden’s Justice Department opted against a raid and charging Bolton, in part, because it would have exposed the U.S.’ hacking of the foreign government.
A Friday court filing by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Kelly Hayes, redacted 10 pages under the heading of “Hack of Bolton AOL Account by Foreign Entity.”
“We don’t know what the evidence is, but it was enough to convince two separate federal judges that there was probable cause to believe a crime had been committed and that the evidence was in John Bolton’s home,” Ken Dilanian reported on MSNBC on Friday.
The New York Times first reported last month that Bolton’s private emails had been intercepted, adding that it was unclear which country had hacked him.
It was also reported after the FBI’s raid that Bolton sent “highly sensitive” classified documents to his wife and daughter through a private email server while serving during the first Trump administration.
“While Bolton was a national security adviser, he was literally stealing classified information, utilizing his family as a cutout,” one senior U.S. official told the New York Post last month.
The probe was initially opened in 2020 amid controversy over Bolton’s tell-all memoir “The Room Where It Happened,” but officials were “trying to prosecute this case for four years, and the [Biden Justice Department] shut it down,” according to the Post.
Bolton has not been charged.
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