Vice President JD Vance on Friday confirmed that President Donald Trump’s administration is “in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation” into former national security adviser John Bolton, but he denied that the investigation was retribution for Bolton’s criticism of Trump.
Vance’s comments came after the FBI executed a search warrant on Bolton’s Maryland home on Friday morning.
“We’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton. I will say we’re going to let that investigation proceed,” Vance told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in an exclusive interview.
“We are investigating Amb. Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law,” he added. “We’re going to be careful about that. We’re going to be deliberate about that, because we don’t think that we should throw people — even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically — you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Vance declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation and on whether Bolton would face federal charges, but he confirmed earlier reporting that the case centers around the storage of classified documents.
“I’ll let the FBI speak to that. Classified documents are certainly part of it, but I think that there’s a broad concern about, about Ambassador Bolton. They’re going to look into it,” Vance told Welker.
“And like I said, if there’s no crime here, we’re not going to prosecute it. If there is a crime here, of course, Amb. Bolton will get his day in court. That’s how it should be. But again, our focus here is on, did he break the law? Did he commit crimes against the American people? If so, then he deserves to be prosecuted,” Vance added.
The vice president doubted that Bolton had been detained as part of the investigation but wasn’t able to confirm that, telling Welker, “I haven’t talked to the FBI this morning. I don’t know the answer to that question. I assume that he hasn’t been detained and won’t be detained until there’s an actual prosecution, if that actually happens.”
The search of Bolton’s home began around 7 a.m. on Friday and the investigation is examining the storage of classified documents and potential instances of documents being used in leaks to news media, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Bolton served as a national security advisor to Trump for about a year and a half during his first term. The two parted ways contentiously in 2019, with Trump claiming he fired Bolton and Bolton claiming he offered to resign after a disagreement.
Since then, Bolton has been an outspoken critic of Trump, alleging in a 2020 book that Trump often made foreign policy decisions in his first term based on whether they would boost his chances of re-election.
In the first several months of Trump’s second term, Bolton has also routinely emerged as a skeptic of the president’s foreign policy and as a critic of several members of Trump’s cabinet.
When pressed by Welker about whether this is retribution, Vance repeatedly denied that Bolton’s criticism was driving the investigation, saying, “I suspect that if the media and the American people let this case actually unfold, if they let the investigation unfold, as it’s currently doing, they’re going to find out that what we’re doing is being very deliberate and being very driven by the national interest, and by the law here and that’s as it should be.”
Kelly O’Donnell contributed.
