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The Situation Room

Now, FBI Searching Home of Former Trump Adviser John Bolton; Trump Speaks as FBI Home of His Ex-National Security Adviser; Trump Comments on Russia's War on Ukraine. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 22, 2025 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, the FBI is the home and office building of former Ambassador John Bolton. What we're learning right now about the search on President Trump's former national security adviser. It's a huge development.

We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is off this morning. You're in The Situation Room.

And we're following multiple major breaking stories this morning. Right now, the FBI is at the home and office building of President Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton. The search is related to the possible retention of national security information, that according to a person familiar with the investigation. We'll have new reporting coming up straight ahead.

Also happening now, the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, speaking at what will almost certainly be his last address at the Central Bank's annual gathering. We're watching for any new hints on a possible interest rate cut.

And in Texas right now, lawmakers are nearing a final vote on new Congressional maps as the state Senate gavels in this morning.

And in Florida, judge ruling that no new detainees can be brought to the facility the Trump administration has dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. Opponents of the facility are speaking about it right now.

We begin this hour with the breaking news, major breaking news, just after dawn this morning, a truly stunning development, FBI agents searching the home of former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton. A source tells CNN the court authorized search is part of a national security investigation.

CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is right outside Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz is here with me in The Situation Room and Senior Reporter Betsy Klein is over at the White House.

Evan, let's start with you. What are you learning?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we're here in Bethesda, in a residential neighborhood in Bethesda. This is the home of John Bolton. And what we've seen in the last few minutes, we've seen FBI agents come out, go into a couple of these vehicles and retrieve boxes, which they then took back into the home.

Now, over the last few hours, again, they've been here for about three hours now, Wolf, and we've seen them come out of these vehicles, take in boxes, what appeared to be document boxes, go back into the house. We haven't seen them bring anything out of it. And so, again, we don't know very much more about what this investigation is about, except that we know it is related to an investigation into the possible retention of national security information.

You remember, of course, that President Trump accused John Bolton of holding onto classified information, that he revealed classified information in a 2020 book that he published on his time serving during the first term of Donald Trump. He was fired in 2019.

And so we don't know whether this is related to that investigation, which was closed in the early months of the Biden administration. We don't know if it's related to that or if there is some new information that came into the FBI that has caused this latest search.

Now, as you mentioned, this is one of two search scenes now from the FBI. We also have seen FBI agents at a location where John Bolton has an office in downtown Washington, D.C. That's a few miles from here, of course. We don't know whether that is also a search of Bolton's office or what the purpose of that FBI presence there is. That is something we're still trying to check out.

Now, the fact that this is being done so visibly early morning hours here, still in the morning, but, usually, what FBI does is they might come at dawn, right, at early morning light and they try to get this done before you have even cameras. They're clearly here not very concerned about being seen on the scene here at John Bolton's home.

[10:05:04]

Again, we don't know what exactly is the focus of this investigation other than we know that it has to do with the retention of national security information and that it is a national security investigation that is now ongoing. Wolf?

BILTZER: I just want to be clear Evan, I know there are Montgomery County, Maryland police cars in front of the house over there protecting the street and letting traffic move forward, but what about military personnel? Any evidence of National Guard troops or anything along those lines?

PEREZ: No, Wolf. We've only seen the Montgomery Co county Sheriff's Office trying to manage some of the traffic flow here. This is a very busy street, very busy area of Bethesda. And so that's one of the things that they typically do with the FBI does a search, they will notify the local law enforcement to make sure that they can help manage traffic around their search that they're conducting.

Again, that search now entering about three hours here at the home of John Bolton in Bethesda, Maryland. Wolf?

BILTZER: All right, Evan, we'll stay in close touch with you. Thank you very, very much.

Katelyn Polantz is here with me in this situation room. What are you hearing from your sources?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, there have been comments made already by the top people at the Justice Department and the FBI cryptically not mentioning Bolton directly, but I want to walk through what those comments have been. We have asked for specific comment about this search and have received nothing.

However, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, posting on social media, quote, America's safety isn't negotiable. Justice will be pursued always. The FBI Director, Kash Patel, posting, just after 7:00 A.M., so right around the time the FBI would've been arriving at John Bolton's home in Maryland, posting, no one is above the law, FBI agents on mission. And the deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino posting, public corruption will not be tolerated, public corruption, that means involving someone who is a former or current government official. So, very possibly they are offering some meta commentary about John Bolton.

One thing to remember here, though, Wolf, is that it's unusual to have officials like this in the government commenting on something that is still happening at John Bolton's house, a case or an investigation that has not resulted in charges in 2020, had a grand jury investigation related to John Bolton's handling of classified information related to the publication of this book, no charges there.

But we do know that this was court-authorized, so there would have been some level of probable cause evidence gathered by the Justice Department presented to at least one court, potentially more, since the FBI appears to be both at his house and the office building of John Bolton in Washington, D.C., and that that would remain secret what the charges and allegations would be here specifically until there would be some sort of formal indictment by a grand jury, if that were to occur. But that would be getting far ahead of things.

Right now this is a search. It would be investigative activity approved by a court, but very far away from saying there's a case here against John Bolton.

BILTZER: And we're all anxious to find out what the evidence was that would justify a truly extraordinary search of a former national security adviser and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. That's ongoing right now.

All right, Katelyn, stand by, I'll get back to you.

Betsy Klein is over at the White House for us. What are you learning from officials over there?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER AND WRITER: Well. Wolf, for now, the White House is referring questions about this to the FBI, but we have learned just a few moments ago, the president is making an unscheduled stop, just a block away from the White House at something called the People's House. It's an exhibit put on by the White House Historical Association. That includes a miniature replica of the White House as well as a replica of the Oval Office. So, we are monitoring as to whether President Trump stops to take questions, address, reporters, react to any of this in the coming moments. We'll be watching that quite closely.

But I just want to zoom out for a moment and talk about the tension between President Trump and John Bolton. He was the president's third national security adviser. He served for about 18 months and was fired in a tweet back in 2019 over what officials described at the time as differences on policy. He was not in alignment, they said, with President Trump on issues like Russia and Iran and other top issues.

And since then, Bolton really emerged as one of the most scathing critics of President Trump and his foreign policies, specifically in his second term. He has taken aim at the president's trip to Alaska to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, among other topics. But in a 2024 updated forward of that 2020 book that Bolton wrote outlining his time in the White House, Bolton wrote, quote, Trump is unfit to be president.

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If his first four years were bad, a second four would be worse.

And that book back in 2020 had some really scathing allegations about Bolton's time in the White House where he worked very closely with President Trump. He said that Trump requested Chinese help to win the 2020 election. He said the president offered to intervene in the criminal justice system on behalf of foreign officials. He also said the president's policies were, quote, a danger for the Republic.

The questions now, was the White House involved in this search? Was the president involved? Has he been briefed? We are waiting to hear from the president on all of that. Wolf?

BLITZER: As soon as we hear from the president, we'll, of course, report that. Thanks very much. Betsy. Evan and Katelyn will be in close touch with all of you. I know you're working your sources will be getting more information, so all of you stand by right now.

I want to bring in the former federal prosecutor and CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, along with former FBI deputy director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst, Andrew McCabe.

Elie, let me start with you. What do we know about what prosecutors must show in order to get a search warrant along these lines?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, Wolf, here's how it works. If you want to get a search warrant, like the ones we're seeing executed now, first, prosecutors have to write up a document. It's usually a fairly long, detailed, specific document where you have to lay out what we call probable cause that some crime was committed and that you're likely to find some evidence of that crime at the location you're searching. You then have to walk that document over to a federal judge who will review it, and if he or she agrees, sign it, but if not, they will reject it.

So, we do know here that DOJ prosecutors did had to have written up a document like this establishing probable cause and that it has to have been signed off on by at least one judge, and as Katelyn said earlier, likely two, because we see search warrants being executed in the District of Columbia and in Maryland.

The important thing I want to note here is probable cause is a lower standard of proof than beyond a reasonable doubt. And, of course, you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt ultimately to convict somebody. But probable cause is still a substantial showing. And, again, you can't just write in conclusory fashion while we have probable cause, your Honor, you have to lay it out with specificity. So, we know this was court-authorized. We know that prosecutors were able to do at least that.

BLITZER: Are they going to release that document to the court?

HONIG : So, it would go over to the defense if there's a charge. The court itself has reviewed the document. In other words, a judge has already reviewed and signed it. Now, in terms of whether John Bolton will ever see it, that would typically only happen after he's charged, at which point he would have the ability to challenge it in court. With respect to the public, we would not normally see that document until after a case is charged.

BLITZER: Good point. I want to bring in the former deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe. Andy, a source tells CNN that the search stems from a now a resumed investigation into whether John Bolton actually disclosed classified information in his 2020 book, which at the time Trump called for Bolton to be jailed for. Listen and watch this.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: He released massive amounts of classified and confidential, but classified information. That's illegal and you go to jail for that. And he should have known that. You go to jail for that. I think some of it was classified by him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We are told that career officials, including intelligence officials over at the White House, actually cleared the book for publication, but Trump's political appointee sought to overturn that initial approval. What do you make of all of this?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It is a bit of a tortured history, Wolf. We do know that John Bolton was terminated from the White House in 2019. He wrote a book. He then submitted it to the National Security Council as he is re was required to do for what we call pre-publication review. That review is conducted by the person on the national security staff who was responsible for that work.

Mr. Bolton contends that after months and months of working with them, that he was told orally that the review had been completed and that the book was cleared for publication. About a week or two after that, he was told that that person's boss had decided to conduct their own review into the classified potential classified material in the book, and it kind of threw the whole process back into a delay.

In the meantime, Bolton had already conveyed to his publisher that the book had been approved. It was printed, it was bound, it was ready to go out. That precipitated a lawsuit by the White House against Bolton to both enjoin the publication of the book and to seize the revenue that Bolton was being paid because they claimed that he had not gone through the process faithfully.

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Ultimately, John Bolton won that -- prevailed in that suit. Money was not taken from him and he was allowed to publish the book. It was only after that process that the Trump DOJ in his first term, of course, initiated then a criminal investigation of whether or not Bolton had mishandled classified information. They convened a grand jury, they issued subpoenas. That work continued from the Bush -- or, I'm sorry, from the Trump DOJ, into the Biden years. But, ultimately, DOJ walked away from the case and kind of dismissed the grand jury and never charged John Bolton with a crime.

So, the fact that they've renewed this investigation now really raises good questions as to whether or not they actually have additional or new evidence that would justify such a step. And it also creates all kinds of problems if John Bolton is ever charged. The government is going to have to explain to a jury that might hear the case someday why the case was dismissed initially.

So, this is complicated. It's likely to get no less complicated, but we are a long way from understanding whether or not this investigation is legitimate and whether or not John Bolton will ultimately face any kind of charges.

BLITZER: Important points, indeed. Elie, what potential crimes could we all be talking about?

HONIG: Well, Wolf, it is a federal crime to intentionally and knowingly mishandle classified or sensitive information. It also is a crime to publicize or to publish such information. We've seen investigations and in some cases charges along similar lines. We've seen investigations of Hillary Clinton relating to her use of private email server. We saw a charge of Donald Trump relating to his mishandling of classified information at Mar-a-Lago. We saw an investigation of Joe Biden done by a special counsel last year relating to his potential retention of classified information.

Now, one thing I do want to note, picking up on a point Andy made, DOJ, if they're going to bring a charge here, they have to deal with the statute of limitations. And for all of those crimes I just said, it's going to be five years. BLITZER: Hold on a moment. Hold on a moment. The president is now speaking. I just want to hear what he's saying.

TRUMP: When I hired him, he served a good purpose because, as you know, he was one of the people that forced push to do the ridiculous bombings in the Middle East, Bolton. He wants to always kill people. And he's very bad at what he does, but he worked out great for me because every time he doesn't talk, he's like a very quiet person except on television. He could say something bad about Trump, he'll always do that. But he really doesn't talk. He's quiet.

And I'd walk into a room with him, with a foreign country, and the foreign country would give me everything because they said, oh no, they're going to get blown up because John Bolton's there. He's not a smart guy but he could be a very unpatriotic guy. I mean, we're going to find out. I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning. They did a raid.

REPORTER: Do you expect the DOJ to brief you on this?

TRUMP: Yes, they'll be -- they'll brief me probably today sometime.

REPORTER: And --

TRUMP: I don't want -- I tell Pam and I tell the group, I don't want to know, but just, you have to do what you have to do. I don't want to know about it. It's not necessary. I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. I'm actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel that it's better this way.

REPORTER: Foreign Minister Lavrov said no meeting is planned right now between Putin and Zelenskyy. Absent that meeting, what are the next steps in your view?

TRUMP: Well, we'll see. We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskyy will be working together. You know, that's like oil and vinegar a little bit. They don't get along too well for obvious reasons. But we'll see. And then we'll see whether or not I would have to be there. I'd rather not. I'd rather have them have a meeting and see how they can do.

But in the meantime, they continue to fight and they continue to kill people, which is very stupid, because they're losing 7,000 people. Now, I used to tell you 5,000. Now they're losing 7,000 people a day -- 7,000 people a week. They're losing -- think of that, they're losing 7,000 people on average a week, mostly soldiers. So we want to see if we can stop it. I've stopped seven wars. I'd like to make this -- this one, I felt would've been in the middle of the pack in terms of difficulty. And it's turning out to be the most difficult.

REPORTER: With the launching of the White House TikTok account, are you no longer concerned about privacy concerns or national security problems?

TRUMP: I'm really not. I think it's highly overrated. So, TikTok, as you know, I used TikTok in the campaign. Some -- young guy named TikTok Act (ph). Then I won the young people by 36 points. No Republican ever wins the young people, and I won it by a lot. And I'm a fan of TikTok. My kids like TikTok. Young people love TikTok and we can keep it going good. And we're going to watch the security concerns.

And we have buyers, American buyers.

[10:20:00]

We have American buyers. And I haven't spoken to President Xi about it. At the right time when we're set, I'll do it. In the meantime, until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer. But we have buyers. We have very substantial American buyers that want to buy it.

REPORTER: President Trump, would you like Congress to give you more control over D.C. when they return from recess?

TRUMP: Look, D.C. is a miracle of what's happened. I mean, they can come up with fake numbers like the mayor's doing. Oh, no, it was going down for 20 years. You didn't live here, you know? Have you been mugged? Okay. D.C. was a hell hole and now it's safe. And, in fact, I put out this morning, I said, I hate to say this because it doesn't sound very good, but there have been no murders in D.C. in the last week. That's the first time in anybody's memory that you haven't had a murder in a week.

And I think the mayor has to get on the ball because we have a situation -- and she's a nice woman, but I'll tell you what, she's got to get on the ball. We have -- I don't want to see phony numbers. D.C. hit an all-time high last year of absolute total crime and it continued pretty bad. And then we put some strength into it. Got the numbers down a little bit, but we brought in the D.C. National Guard and we coupled them with the police and it has been amazing.

I have friends that live here, people that work in the White House, but I have friends that live here. They're all going out to dinner now. They haven't gone out in years. One man, I told this story yesterday when we were with the police and with the National Guard, we had a great little celebration, brought them hamburgers, brought them pizza, but we were with them. And I told the story about one friend, hasn't been out in four years to a restaurant, and now he's been out four nights in a row.

He called me this morning, by the way. He said it's so safe. He feels like totally safe. He can walk. He's got a ten-block walk. He walks it. He wouldn't have walked those ten blocks. He said it would be a chain of hell, he called it. He said it was just horrible. He had no chance of making it to the tenth block.

And the mayor has to admit that. She can't say it was just like it hasn't been clean. Now, it's going to be clean. I'm giving out a contract very soon, Susie's with me, where we're going to be raising about $2 billion from. Congress and Congress is happy to do it. And we're going to wisely spend the money we're doing with Clark Construction. We're going to head out right from the Capitol and the White House.

And if you look at a circle and go about three miles out, it's going to be beautiful. All those light bulbs, see the poles there, they're rusting and they got different lenses on top. If you look, I mean, just looking at so many different problems. And we're going to have this place beautified within a period of 12 months. The streets are going to be re-topped, not ripped up and rebuilt, and they're no good after they rebuild them because they start settling.

We're going to take off the asphalt and put beautiful, well-done asphalt. You know, if you have a good asphalt worker, it's the greatest thing you can have. But there aren't too many of them, but we know -- I know all the good contractors. So, this place will be beautified within a period of months. So, it'll be safe and beautified.

And then the big question is, how long do we stay? Because if we stay, we want to make sure it doesn't come back. So, we have to take care of these criminals and get them out here. We've collected hundreds of career criminals. These are career criminals. You're not going to teach them to be nice. These are probably born that way. I don't know. But they're career criminals. They're very, very dangerous people. They would love to be with you for a little while they'd slap you around.

But I put my money on this guy. He'd take them, right? He'd take them down so quickly he said. He's saying, I don't want any part of it. No, people don't want to be that. And we we're taking -- we have over a thousand arrest. We're taking career criminals off the streets. It's my ambition that when we're complete, we can take everybody out and you have a great capital.

But people are so happy, and I don't know where they get the polls. I see polls that they're 90 percent in favor of what I'm doing. And then you turn to CNN, which is fake news and nobody watches it, or MSDNC, they change MSNBC. They changed their name now because they were so bad. But they're the worst, owned by Comcast, run by a guy named Brian Roberts, who doesn't have a clue. He's terrible, terrible manager. But they're not, I don't think, selling it. They're changing the name because they're ashamed of it and they're disassociating it from NBC, which is also fake news. You know, they should be ashamed of that too, but a lot of fake news.

I think the news is getting better. They're learning that they have no credibility. ABC, CBS was just sold to a great person that I know very well, a great man. He actually just bought CBS and I think he's going to do the right thing with it. NBC is run terribly by Comcast. I call it Concast because it's a whole con.

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And you're going to see some things happening. I think you're going to see some just amazing things happening.

But to me, D.C. is very exciting. And a lot of people say, well, where's he going from there? Well, I have calls from politicians begging me to go to Chicago, begging me to go to New York, begging me to go to Los Angeles. And if we didn't go to Los Angeles with Newsom, they run it so badly, I don't think we would've been able to have the Olympics. They would've ripped down that city. We went there and it stopped day one.

And the chief of police in Los Angeles, when they asked him the question, he said, thank God they came because we could not have handled what was happening. We went in, we stopped it, and that was it. So, they needed help. They don't like to say it. I wish they'd say, I need help. I wish the mayor of D.C. would say, you know, we're overridden with crime and we need help, instead of saying the stats are down. I mean, they're under investigation now for fake numbers where they fudge the numbers, and they did. There's no question about it. They said, oh, we're on a downtrend for 20 years. No, they're on an uptrend for 20 years.

We are going to make D.C. totally safe. When people come from Iowa, Indiana, all of the beautiful places, and they come, they're not going to go home in a body bag. They're not going home in a coffin. And it's very safe right now. There's been no murder since I started.

And, you know, it's a terrible thing to say. Who would think that you have to say that there have been no murders? It's terrible. I wrote it this morning. I said it's hard to say this, but it's actually good news, but it's a hell of a thing to say, there have been no murders in the last week and nobody can remember the last time that this happened.

And there won't be murders because all the thugs are hiding or they're being sent back to their countries or they're in jail. And it'll only get better. But we're also doing the beautification. And I just wanted to see the store because this -- they have done a fantastic job. It's memorabilia. It's beautiful books and beautiful, beautiful -- everything.

It's really -- I think, the fake newsletter go in and buy some stuff and make happy. I pay it. But then you say, I'm trying to pay you off, so I don't want to do it. I'd pay the price. But if I did that, Margo (ph), they'd say he's trying to pay us off. And with the fake news, we can't be bought off. So, anyway, so I want to, I just want to thank you all.

We're going now and I don't know if you're following. Are you following? We'll have a stop at the really beautiful, what will be beautiful right now, I can't use bad language, but it's been so badly run, and they built these cubes outside, these cubes, and there's stairways that go down to little rooms that nobody uses. It's so crazy what they did. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars. It's like throwing money out the window. They built cubes. All it does is block off the view.

So, I'm either going to use those cubes as a platform. You know, they go down to little stages, but nobody uses it. And we're taking care of our big, beautiful stages that people really want. And we have artists from all over the world wanting to come. I think we're signing the World Cup. The World Cup's going to have its primary office in the Kennedy Center.

And, again, I want to thank our board at the Kennedy Center. They have been absolutely incredible. But you may get a chance to see what we're going to do a little bit. I'll show you beautiful slabs of marble that, for the sake of cleaning and grouting, would look like they got put in yesterday by a top marble smith.

So, I want to thank you all and I'll see you in 15 minutes, okay? Thank you. Thank you very much.

BLITZER: All right. So, there we just heard the president of the United States answering questions, making statements on several important issues, but he did say at the beginning, this FBI assault on the home of John Bolton, the president's former national security adviser, Trump says he didn't know about it. He didn't know about the raid. He said he found out about it only this morning. And at one point he says, I don't want to know about it. He doesn't want to get involved, but he defended it at the same time. He said he only found out about what was going on this morning. He was not officially informed by the Justice Department or the FBI that this was about to take place.

He also answered questions on several other important issues, including Russia's war against Ukraine, saying it's oil and vinegar between Putin and Zelenskyy. It didn't sound very encouraging about that. He defended his decision to create a TikTok account. He said that he had been concerned about security, but we're watching it right now. And he said that this is an important development.

And on the issue of the federal troops, the National Guard personnel that are now all over Washington, D.C., he says, it's a miracle of what's going on. He said that there have been no murders this week in Washington, D.C. And he says it had been a hellhole, but he's changing it. He will make the nation's capital, he said, safe and beautiful.

We're watching all of this. Betsy Klein is over at the White House. What jumped out at you, Betsy?

[10:30:00]

KLEIN: Well, it was really interesting to me, Wolf, that the president continued to lash out at John Bolton, who, again, served as his national security adviser for about 18 months, fired.