Bolton Attacks Trump For ‘Utterly Incoherent’ Ukraine Policy Days After FBI Raid

Former national security adviser John Bolton has gone after President Trump, blasting his Ukraine strategy as “incoherent” in an opinion piece published Monday, just a few days after federal agents raided his Maryland home and D.C. office over the handling of classified documents.

“President Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy is no more coherent today than it was last Friday when his administration executed search warrants against my home and office,” Bolton said in Washington Examiner.

Bolton’s op-ed title went all-in: “Trump’s utterly incoherent Ukraine strategy.” He wrote that “Collapsing in confusion, haste, and the absence of any discernible meeting of the minds among Ukraine, Russia, several European countries, and America, Trump’s negotiations may be in their last throes, along with his Nobel Peace Prize campaign.”

Hoped-for momentum towards an eventual trilateral Putin-Zelensky-Trump summit has indeed been stalled, and Trump said late last week that we could make a major decision if peace isn’t negotiated in two weeks – which likely means more biting sanctions on Russia and its trading partners.

Neither warring side has actually backed off from its position, and Russia has little reason to soften its demands given that it maintains the clear upper-hand on the battlefield. Still, Bolton – as one of the neocon madmen behind the push to invade and overthrow Iraq (and other countries) – is not one to talk about coherent foreign policy.

“The administration has tried to camouflage its disarray behind social media posts, such as Trump comparing his finger-pointing at Russian President Vladimir Putin to then-Vice President Richard Nixon during the famous kitchen debate with Nikita Khrushchev,” Bolton said further in his piece. “Why Trump wants to be compared to the only president who resigned in disgrace is unclear.”

So clearly, Bolton is not backing down or being quiet despite the FBI raid on his home last Friday, which was described as a “court-authorized law enforcement activity.”

The ‘war’ in the op-ed pages has been unleashed, as on Tuesday White House trade adviser Peter Navarro took to The Hill and charged Bolton with “profiteering off of America’s secrets” in relation to his 2020 book, “The Room Where It Happened.”

Navarro’s op-ed said “He was trafficking in Oval Office conversations and national security intelligence that should have stayed secret – either by law or under executive privilege.” 

“That isn’t service. That isn’t patriotism. That’s profiteering off of America’s secrets,” Navarro wrote, citing a federal judge who at the time said “seems to be out of the barn” – when Trump officials had tried to stop its publication. Back in 2020, Navarro had slammed the memoir as like “revenge porn”.

Bolton has only issued rare praise of Trump when he bombs another country (as he did Iran this summer)…

John Bolton, who Trump denounced in his first term as a “warmonger” when he fired him, heaps praise on Trump for… being a warmonger. pic.twitter.com/HHdiKgUDam

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) June 22, 2025

As for the raid on Bolton’s house, Trump has said that he didn’t personally order it or know about it before-hand, amid accusations that it is politically motivated retribution. The president has, however, said that Bolton “could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”