John Bolton

John Bolton (born November 20, 1948, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.) is a former American government official who served as national security adviser (2018–19) to United States President Donald Trump. Bolton previously was the interim U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2005–06). In 2025, Bolton’s home and office were searched as part of what the government said was an investigation into whether he mishandled classified documents. He was later indicted on charges that he illegally kept and sent classified information.

Early political career

Bolton was educated at Yale University (B.A., 1970; J.D., 1974), and much of his subsequent career was spent in government jobs. A conservative Republican, he began his federal service in the administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan, holding positions in the U.S. Agency for International Development and as assistant attorney general (1985–89). From 1989 to 1993, under Pres. George H.W. Bush, he was assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs. During the 1990s Bolton was active in prominent conservative organizations, including the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), at which he was a vice president in 1997–2001, and the Project for the New American Century. He also was an official of the Republican National Committee.

In the administration of Pres. George W. Bush, Bolton was undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs. He supported a number of reversals of U.S. foreign policy positions, including retraction of support for the International Criminal Court and withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Bolton ran the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative, which attempted to broker bilateral agreements on arms control between the U.S. and partner countries, and in 2001 he succeeded in halting an international conference on biological weapons over verification issues. For a time he was a member of the U.S. delegation in talks with North Korea, but he was removed in 2003 after he made derogatory comments about that country’s leader.

Controversial U.N. appointment

On August 1, 2005, President Bush named Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the UN in a recess appointment (made while Congress was not in session). Bush had nominated Bolton for the UN post on March 7 of that year, but hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were extraordinarily rancorous. When it became clear that the Republican-controlled Senate committee could not muster a majority in support of Bolton’s nomination, the nomination was sent to the full Senate without a recommendation. Two attempts to end a Democratic filibuster and bring the nomination to a vote then failed.

Although Bolton had supporters, particularly those who advocated a strong unilateral U.S. foreign policy and reform of the UN, there were equally fervent critics. Among the most serious charges against him were that he had consistently pursued his own notions of what U.S. diplomacy should be, even when his views were not consistent with U.S. government policy; that he had advocated an independent Taiwan despite a long-standing U.S. one-China policy; that he had pressured intelligence analysts to report findings that supported his own views and had attempted to have workers transferred or fired when they did not do so; and that he had given false testimony before Congress in 2003. Bolton commonly scorned the UN as well as international treaties and campaigned against a third term for International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Indeed, one of Bolton’s first actions at the UN was to demand major changes to the draft of a document for reform of the body.

Bolton’s recess appointment was due to expire at the conclusion of the 109th Congress (2005–06). As the Democratic Party had won majorities in both the House and Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, he stood virtually no chance of being confirmed for another term. Rather than force a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bolton announced his resignation in December 2006.

Trump administration tenure

After leaving office, Bolton resumed his work with conservative organizations, notably the AEI. He also became a Fox News consultant. During the 2012 presidential election, he served as an adviser to Mitt Romney. In March 2018 Pres. Donald Trump announced that Bolton was to replace Lieut. Gen. H.R. McMaster as head of the National Security Council. Bolton assumed the post, which does not require Senate confirmation, the following month.

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However, he later found himself at odds with Trump, especially concerning North Korea and Iran. While Bolton supported a hard-line approach to the two countries, Trump increasingly seemed to favor negotiation. In September 2019 Bolton stepped down as national security adviser; while Trump claimed that he had asked for Bolton’s resignation, Bolton stated that he had offered to leave the post. What seems clear is that a divide between the two men over whether to invite the Taliban,the ultraconservative rebel group that seized control of Afghanistan in the 1990s, to Camp David was the last straw. Members of the Trump administration accused Bolton of leaking the idea of a Camp David meeting to The New York Times. If true, it would be another example of the issue that had dogged him previously – a desire to follow his own policy inclinations and not those of the president he served.

In September 2019 the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump following allegations that he had extorted Ukraine to investigate one of his political rivals. Bolton was considered an important witness, especially after colleagues alleged that he had referred to the Ukraine situation as a “drug deal.” However, he refused to testify without a court order, and the House did not subpoena him. After the House impeached Trump, the proceedings moved to the Senate, and there were more calls for Bolton to testify after passages from his upcoming book were leaked. Although Bolton said he would appear if subpoenaed, the Senate ultimately voted not to call witnesses, and Trump was acquitted.

Ongoing feud

The acrimony between Trump and Bolton continued into the 2020s. In June 2020 the U.S. Department of Justice sued to delay publication of Bolton’s memoir, The Room Where It Happened, claiming that it had not completed the standard government review and that it contained classified information. A judge denied the request but left open the possibility that Bolton might have to forfeit the book’s profits and that he faced the possibility of being prosecuted. The Room Where It Happened was published soon after the ruling, and it offered a highly critical account of Trump’s presidency. Bolton alleged that Trump had engaged in numerous illegal acts, notably offering political favors to foreign countries in exchange for assistance with his reelection.

One of the first acts that Trump took after assuming office in 2025 was to eliminate the Secret Service detail that had been assigned to protect Bolton since December 2021, when the Justice Department reported that a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard attempted to hire a hitman in the United States to assassinate Bolton.

For his part, Bolton has been a vocal critic of Trump, including his ongoing negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Russia-Ukraine War. The August 2025 searches of Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home and Washington, D.C., office were related to an investigation into whether Bolton either possessed or shared classified information illegally, according to The Washington Post. The searches would have required a judge to sign off on a search warrant and could indicate that the investigation is far along. FBI agents removed boxes from the Bolton home. To be held criminally liable, it must be proven that someone was in possession of classified documents intentionally and not accidentally. Bolton had no comment in the immediate aftermath of the search but earlier in the month he had been asked if he thought he was being targeted by the administration.  “I think it is a retribution presidency,” he told ABC News.

In October 2025, a federal grand jury in Maryland returned an eighteen count indictment against Bolton, charging that he illegally kept and shared classified information while writing his memoir. According to the indictment, Bolton sent emails that contained information that appeared to have come from classified documents he had access to while serving as national security adviser during the first Trump administration. The emails, which were sent using an unsecured account, were hacked by the government of Iran, the indictment stated.