Back on August 22, federal agents raided former national security adviser John Bolton’s office and his home in Bethesda, Maryland, as part of an investigation related to allegations that he unlawfully disclosed classified information in his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened - or else has mishandled classified information by keeping it.
Newly unsealed court records revealed by Politico this week show that FBI agents did seize classified documents during the search of his downtown office. These recovered materials were described as "secret" or "confidential" or "classified".
US District Court for the District of Columbia documents further included information referencing weapons of mass destruction, as well as sensitive information on the US government's strategic communications.
Federals investigators are mulling possibly bringing federal criminal charges against Bolton, and the unsealed documents given insight into evidence on which they might build their case.
According to an inventory list complied by FBI agents, property removed from Bolton’s Washington, DC, office on August 22 included the following:
"Travel memo documents with pages labeled secret"
"US Mission to the United Nations - Confidential Documents"
"U.S. Government Strategic Communications Plan - Confidential Documents"
"Confidential Documents with (redacted) heading Weapons of Mass Destruction Classified Documents"
Confidential and Secret are both what can be described as lower levels of classification for national security information which tends to get distributed widely, but requires security clearances for the people viewing or handling it, and is kept in government offices and files, or maintained via secure and approved channels.
Secret is a middle tier of classification, and mishandling such information would be viewed as more serious compared to records marked 'Confidential' - which is the lowest tier, often including routine diplomatic information.
Bolton's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has already seized on the lower-level aspect, arguing that the records had already been cleared for Bolton's use a long time ago and that many were more than two decades old.
Lowell issued a statement saying, "These materials, many of which are documents that had been previously approved as part of a pre-publication review for Amb. Bolton’s book, were reviewed and closed years ago."
"These are the kinds of ordinary records, many of which are 20 years old or more, that would be kept by a 40-year career official who served at the State Department, as an Assistant Attorney General, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and the National Security Advisor. Specifically, the documents with classification markings from the period 1998-2006 date back to Amb. Bolton’s time in the George W. Bush Administration," Lowell continued. "An objective and thorough review will show nothing inappropriate was stored or kept by Amb. Bolton."
But this is unlikely to satisfy people calling the shots at the DOJ during this new Trump administration, who want to see Bolton suffer serious repercussions - though Trump himself has previously insisted this is not retaliatory in nature, and that he's not directly involved.