One of President Donald Trump's allies speculated about the origins of the FBI raid on former national security adviser John Bolton.
The former Trump appointee has been highly critical of the president since he was fired by tweet in September 2019, at the beginning of the first impeachment saga, and former Trump campaign adviser David Urban told "CNN News Central" that the raid likely stems from Bolton's book detailing Trump's diplomatic bungling.
"Well, you know, he clearly doesn't agree with the president," Urban said. "He clearly, you know, attacks him on a wide variety of fronts, some justified, some perhaps not. But it's been pointed out this this doesn't stem, I don't believe, from this past week. I think this stems going back to 2020 when when John Bolton published this book and the manuscript was leaked after the National Security Council told Bolton's lawyers that it was not, it could not be published because it contained classified information, and it was going to be a problem."
Bolton has in recent days sharply criticized the president's handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, which has prompted attacks from Trump himself, and the former national security adviser tweeted out new criticism of his diplomacy as FBI agents searched his Maryland home.
"Russia has not changed its goal: drag Ukraine into a new Russian Empire," Bolton posted on X at 7:32 a.m. "Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede territory it already holds and the remainder of Donetsk, which it has been unable to conquer. Zelensky will never do so."
Urban, however, believes the search warrant was executed over Bolton's book, which prompted a Department of Justice probe in Trump's first term that was ultimately dismissed in June 2021, during Joe Biden's presidency, and a related lawsuit was dropped at that time seeking royalties from its publication without the administration's full approval.
"The manuscript leaked to different news outlets, and it was a quite a kerfuffle," Urban said. "If you remember back in 2020, it was a big deal in terms of what was being published and what wasn't, and there was a lot of questions, and so I think this is, you know, 100 percent about that and not so much about the most recent brush-up between John Bolton and the president."