Foreign Spies Intercepted Bolton’s Classified Emails

John Bolton, the former US national security adviser, came under investigation during Joe Biden’s presidency for mishandling classified material, it has been reported.

Emails from Bolton containing sensitive material were found in data gathered from another country’s spy service, according to The New York Times.

Bolton’s home and offices were raided by the FBI last week in what some characterised as an act of retribution by Donald Trump against his highly critical former aide.

However, the New York Times report suggests the investigation into Bolton had gathered steam even before Trump returned to office in January and installed loyalists to head the intelligence agencies.

Bolton is alleged to have sent emails on an unclassified system containing state secrets to people helping him gather material for his memoir, The Room Where It Happened, which was published in 2020.

The information, said to have come from classified documents seen during his tenure as national security adviser, was reportedly intercepted by the spy service of an adversarial country.

Sources said a major reason for the search of Bolton’s home and offices in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday was to see if he held material that would match and corroborate the material held by the foreign spy agency.

Officials have indicated the remit for the raid went beyond longstanding allegations about his memoir, and would address claims he leaked sensitive materials.