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The FBI didn’t search the home of just any Trump critic.

This is John Bolton, Washington’s bête noire. The mustachioed foreign policy hawk has been on the critical end of opposition from all over the place.

His nomination as UN ambassador was filibustered by Democrats during the George W. Bush administration.

He was the subject of an alleged Iranian assassination plot during the Biden administration, likely for his work during the first Trump administration.

And in the very large pool of former aides fired by President Donald Trump, Bolton may be the loudest in his criticism of Trump’s transactional way of running the White House.

None of that bears on what should concern most Americans: that the justice system is being turned on Trump’s political critics.

FBI agents carry empty boxes into the home of former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday. Jose Luis Magana/AP

Allegations from Bolton’s 2020 memoir, in which he roasted Trump’s leadership and accused the president of improperly using foreign policy to his domestic political advantage, featured prominently in the first of Trump’s two first-term impeachments. Trump was acquitted in both impeachments and he said that Bolton should be put in jail for what he wrote.

It is now that book, and rehashed questions over whether Bolton disclosed classified material when he wrote it, that appear to be at the center of the FBI’s search of his home in Maryland and office in Washington, DC.

But there is a much longer tale of Bolton’s long history at the center of Washington scandals.

The Iraq war and a failed nomination

Although Bolton worked in Republican administrations for much of his career, the first time everyday Americans might have heard his name was during the George W. Bush administration.

Bush nominated Bolton to be the US ambassador to the UN even though Bolton had at one point argued that if UN headquarters “lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

But what ultimately sank his nomination was the subtle opposition of Republicans such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the fact that senators said they were misled by Bolton, who failed to disclose he was questioned as part of an internal government review of intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war.

John Bolton adjusts his glasses as he prepares to speak at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination for US Ambassador to the UN, on April 11, 2005. Jason Reed/Reuters/File

One top State Department official at the time criticized Bolton as “a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.”

Opposition to Bolton’s nomination was led by then-Sen. Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.

Bush ultimately put Bolton in the role temporarily with a recess appointment, a method Trump would later employ repeatedly for Senate-confirmed positions during his first term.

A fierce critic of Obama on Iran

Bolton stayed active in foreign policy as a frequent and loud critic of the Obama administration, particularly for its involvement in a deal with other Western countries and Russia to ease sanctions on Iran in exchange for assurances it would not pursue nuclear weapons. Bolton would have preferred a more militaristic approach.

Bolton’s book at the time, “How Barack Obama Is Endangering Our National Sovereignty,” was not subtle.

Trump later pulled out of that Iran nuclear deal, to applause from Bolton. In his second term, Trump has both pursued a new version of a nuclear deal and dispatched bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Working for Trump, for a time

Concerns in the Republican foreign policy establishment about Bolton initially followed him into the first Trump administration, when he was initially considered for a top role in the State Department. But his hawkish views turned Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, against the idea.

Trump, during that first term, was churning through national security advisers with regularity, and Bolton jumped from his role as a Fox News analyst to the White House in March of 2018 after promising Trump “he wouldn’t start any wars” if he was selected, CNN reported at the time.

Fired by Trump as impeachment effort brewed

But Trump’s openness to talks with autocrats such as Kim Jong Un made Bolton an awkward fit in his White House, and Bolton began, quietly at first, to turn on Trump.

Bolton was fired, or technically resigned, in September of 2019, just as a whistleblower complaint alleging Trump held up military aid as a way to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch investigations of Joe Biden, who was then looking at an ultimately successful run for president in 2020.

After his ouster from Trump’s orbit, Bolton wrote a tell-all memoir. But allegations from the book about Trump’s efforts to pressure Zelensky, leaked before publication, featured prominently in Trump’s first impeachment trial.

John Bolton listens as President Donald Trump speak during a cabinet meeting at the White House, on April 9, 2018. Evan Vucci/AP/File

Bolton was not ultimately a witness at the trial, and he criticized Democrats for too narrowly focusing the proceedings on Ukraine rather than engaging in a more wide-ranging and methodical process to uncover what Bolton viewed as Trump’s misdeeds, including Bolton’s allegation that Trump asked China for help winning the 2020 presidential election, among many others.

Trump’s first-term White House tried to block the release of Bolton’s book, which was ultimately published — after a judge’s order — in June of 2020, accompanied by a flood-the-airwaves publicity blitz.

Still no fan of Democrats

While Bolton has maintained his criticism of Trump, he has not exactly jumped on board with Democrats. Before the 2024 election, he told CNN’s Kasie Hunt he would cast a protest vote and write in former Vice President Dick Cheney, something he reconsidered after Cheney endorsed Harris.

In 2022, the Department of Justice charged a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard for allegedly trying to orchestrate Bolton’s assassination, likely in retaliation for the 2020 assassination of Iran Revolutionary Guard commander Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq.

But the danger Bolton could face for his work on Trump’s behalf in his first term is not enough for Trump to continue to protect Bolton. Hours after taking office in January, Trump ordered that Bolton be stripped of a protective security detail.

Trump said Friday he was not involved in the decision to search Bolton’s house, but he expected a briefing from the Justice Department soon.