In a preview of an interview that will air Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Vice President JD Vance said the government has “broad” concerns about former National Security Advisor John Bolton after an FBI raid on his home.
KRISTEN WELKER: Let’s start with some breaking news. We’ve learned that the FBI is searching the home of former ambassador John Bolton, his office as well. Can you tell me why is the FBI raiding Ambassador Bolton’s home and office and did the White House get a heads up?
VANCE: So we’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton. I will say we’re going to let that investigation proceed. What I can tell you is that unlike the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI, our law enforcement agencies are going to be driven by law and not by politics. And so if we think that Ambassador Bolton has committed a crime, of course, eventually prosecutions will come, but, as you know Kristen, this is all part of gathering evidence, trying to understand something that we’re worried about. And of course I’ll let the FBI comment on the next stage of the investigation.
WELKER: What’s at the root of this? Is this about classified documents?
VANCE: Again, I’ll let the FBI speak to that. Classified documents are certainly part of it, but I think that there’s a broad concern about Ambassador Bolton. They’re going to look into it. And, like I said, if there’s no crime here, we’re not going to prosecute it. If there is a crime here, of course Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court. That’s how it should be. But again, our focus here is on, did he break the law? Did he commit crimes against the American people? If so, then he deserves to be prosecuted.
WELKER: As we have this conversation, has Ambassador Bolton been detained, taken into custody, arrested in any form?
VANCE: So this news just broke this morning in the FBI. I haven’t talked to the FBI this morning. I don’t know the answer to that question. I assume that he hasn’t been detained and won’t be detained until there’s an actual prosecution, if that actually happens.
WELKER: As you know, Ambassador Bolton is a frequent critic of President Trump’s. He’s also on Kash Patel’s enemies list. The administration has already revoked his security clearance, secret service protection. Is Ambassador Bolton being targeted because he’s a critic of President Trump?
VANCE: No, not at all. And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy-nilly like the Biden administration DOJ did, prosecutions that later got thrown out in court. If we bring a case, and of course we haven’t done that yet, the Department of Justice has not done that yet — we are investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine that he has broken the law. We’re going to be careful about that, we’re going be deliberate about that because we don’t think that we should throw people, even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically, you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations and that’s what we’re doing.
WELKER: But you know, a lot of people have already looked at this and said, this looks a lot like retribution. Is this retribution?
VANCE: Well, who has said it looks a lot like retribution, Kristen? A lot of people who tried to throw Donald Trump in prison for completely fake charges that were later thrown out by multiple different courts. I suspect that if the media and the American people let this case actually unfold, if they let the investigation unfold as it’s currently doing, they’re going to find out that what we’re doing is being very deliberate and being very driven by the national interest and by the law here, and that’s as it should be.
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