Former Trump White House Lawyer: I ‘Locked My Door’ After Seeing John Bolton FBI Raid

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb told NPR on Monday that he locked his door after seeing the FBI’s raid on former Trump national security adviser John Bolton last week.

“What did you think about when you heard of the FBI’s search of John Bolton’s house and office?” asked NPR host Steve Inskeep during an interview with Cobb on Morning Edition.

“Well, I went down and locked my door,” replied Cobb, who – like Bolton – has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump in recent years.

Inskeep laughed before responding, “Well, okay, so you’re ready for a knock. I think you’re saying that it seems like even somebody who worked for the president is not safe in this situation.”

“I think anybody that’s critical of the president, you know, has justifiable paranoia at this stage of the game,” said Cobb, adding:

But, you know, I think it’s important on the Bolton thing to not overreact. There is certainly, you know, retribution involved. There’s certainly an abandonment of traditional norms at the Justice Department in going back and doing this. Typically, in a situation where somebody has written a book that gets close to the line or goes over the line on classified information, you know, there are– 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 because the pre-review process is heavily weighted against classified information getting out.

And in Bolton’s situation, he did submit his manuscript for review. 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.

After Inskeep noted, “I suppose, to be fair, we don’t know what the FBI found or might find. We might find that there was a classified document or something in there,” Cobb replied:

Well, I do think it’s certainly possible that they’ll find documents that they insist are classified. You know, whether in fact at this stage of the game that classification is real or not would have to be litigated. But I think in the Bolton situation, you know, you do have a federal judge finding, in his circumstances, that he likely did disclose classified information. That’s part of the public record.

So there must have been enough in the affidavit, you know, seeking the search warrant that supported a magistrate judge issuing the warrant for probable cause. We’ll see that affidavit at some point, assuming that Bolton gets charged. I’m not sure he will be charged. I differ from others on– those who say that he’s certain to be indicted.

Bolton’s home was raided by the FBI on Friday as part of a “national security probe” over classified documents.

“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” wrote FBI director Kash Patel on social media following the raid.