President Donald Trump said Friday he was not briefed in advance on the FBI raid of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s home, telling reporters he first saw news of the search on television.
“No, I don’t know about it. I saw it on television this morning,” Trump said when asked by reporters if he had been informed in advance about the raid.
A source confirmed to Newsmax that the investigation is focused on the handling of classified documents and national security secrets.
The president offered a sharp critique of Bolton, who served as his national security adviser from 2018 to 2019.
“I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real sort of a low-life,” he said.
Trump described Bolton as someone who “wants to always kill people” and “is very bad at what he does,” but added that Bolton’s presence sometimes worked to his advantage in foreign meetings.
According to Trump, that was because other governments assumed the United States might take a more aggressive stance because of Bolton’s reputation.
Asked whether he expected a briefing from the Department of Justice regarding the raid, Trump said, “Yeah, they’ll be probably [briefing me] today sometime.”
Bolton joined the Trump administration in 2018 but was dismissed the following year after clashing with the president on issues ranging from Iran to North Korea. Since then, the two men have traded repeated public barbs, with Bolton publishing a memoir critical of Trump’s foreign policy and Trump frequently dismissing his former adviser as ineffective and disloyal.
Last week, Trump slammed Bolton for his comments about the summit in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In an interview before the summit, Bolton warned that the meeting could undermine Ukraine and the Western alliance while giving Putin too much control.
Trump responded on his Truth Social account, writing: “Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, ‘Putin has already won.'”
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