Former Trump administration appointee Ty Cobb said Monday that he doesn’t think the FBI’s raid of President Trump’s ex-national security adviser John Bolton’s home and office last week will lead to any charges, but he acknowledged it had a chilling effect on people who might otherwise criticize Trump.
“I went down and locked my door,” Cobb, who was White House attorney during Trump’s first term, joked in an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep. “I think anybody that’s critical of the president has justifiable paranoia at this stage of the game, but, you know, I think it’s important on the Bolton thing to not overreact.”
“I’m not sure he will be charged — I differ from others on those who say he’s certain to be indicted,” he added.
The search was reportedly related to Bolton’s handling of classified documents. Cobb noted that Bolton’s 2020 memoir had already prompted the president’s prior administration to begin probing possible disclosures of classified information.
“I do think it’s certainly possible that they’ll find documents that they insist are classified,” Cobb said. “You know whether, in fact, at this stage of the game that classification is real or not, would have to be litigated.”
The president has denied any direct role in or knowledge of the Bolton investigation.
“[Bolton’s] not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out,” Trump told reporters when asked about the search Friday. “I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning, they did a raid.”
Bolton, 76, was Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, when the president fired him with a post on social media. The former ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration then began writing his book “The Room Where It Happened” about his experience in Trump’s White House. The memoir was released in June 2020 after a lengthy review by the National Security Council.
“There is certainly, you know, retribution involved,” Cobb said. “There’s certainly an abandonment of traditional norms at the Justice Department in going back and doing this.”
“There’s anxiety; there’s name calling; there’s a bunch of bad press, but it’s rare, if ever, that anybody gets prosecuted under those circumstances,” he added.
Trump revoked Bolton’s security clearance and protective detail just hours after his return to the White House in January.
“In Bolton’s situation, he did submit his manuscript for review,” Cobb said. “They didn’t want to publish it, so he had to sue to enforce the process, and ultimately, the release of his book was authorized by a federal court.”
“This is something that was litigated extensively five years ago,” he added.
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