John Bolton could be headed to prison for endangering national security after the FBI uncovered a trove of evidence at his home.
Bolton has not been indicted, but top FBI officials say he should face charges for stealing classified information during his brief, tumultuous tenure as national security adviser during Trump's first term, the New York Post reported.
According to sources who spoke with the Post, the FBI raid of Bolton's home and office uncovered "a lot" of evidence that prosecutors could use in a case against him.
Members of Trump's Justice Department believe the investigation had gone quiet during the Biden administration, possibly as a favor to Bolton, a vocal critic of Trump.
“The [Biden administration] had probable cause to know that he had taken material that was detrimental to the national security of the United States, and they made no effort to retrieve it,” a senior FBI official told The Post.
Bolton's preferential treatment would have come even as the Biden Justice Department tried to prosecute Trump for his handling of classified information - with the Biden FBI even raiding Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate.
The current investigation into Bolton is separate - and, insiders say, wider and more serious - than a previous criminal probe into Bolton's tell-all book, which contained classified information gathered from his time in the Trump White House.
Bolton, who was fired by Trump in 2019, published the anti-Trump tome despite a judge finding it likely "jeopardized national security."
Trump's critics have accused him of targeting Bolton for revenge, something Trump and his team have denied.
The New York Times, hardly a Trump-friendly newspaper, conceded in a new article that the FBI investigation appears to have a credible basis.
The probe centers on e-mails, intercepted by U.S. intelligence, which had been obtained by a foreign spy service, the newspaper noted. The e-mails were apparently sent by Bolton to people close to him using an unclassified server.
Two different judges signed off on search warrants targeting Bolton, which would have required probable cause of a crime.
"One major reason for conducting the searches was to see if Mr. Bolton possessed material that matched or corroborated the intelligence agency material, which, if found, would indicate that the emails found in the possession of the foreign spy service were genuine," the Times wrote.
After the raid last Friday morning, Trump questioned Bolton's loyalty to the country.
“He’s not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy,” Trump said. “We’re going to find out.”
