John Bolton, who served as National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump during his first term and later became a vocal critic of the Republican leader, has been indicted by a federal grand jury, for storing top secret records at home and sharing with relatives diary-like notes about his time in government that contained classified information.
Bolton, the third high-profile Trump political enemy to be indicted in less than a month, now faces eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
The 18-count indictment also suggests classified information was exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian regime hacked Bolton’s email account and gained access to sensitive material he had shared.
According to prosecutors, a Bolton representative told the FBI in 2021 that his emails had been hacked but did not reveal he had shared classified information through the account or that the hackers now had possession of government secrets.
The indictment sets the stage for a closely watched court case centering on a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power and who served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019 and publishing a scathingly critical book about the President.
The indictment, filed in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, alleges that between 2018 and this past August, Bolton shared with two relatives more than 1,000 pages of information about his day-to-day activities in government.
The material included “diary-like” entries with information classified as high as top secret that he had learned from meetings with other US government officials, from intelligence briefings or talks with foreign leaders, according to the indictment.
The indictment says that among the material shared was information about foreign adversaries that in some cases revealed details about sources and methods used by the government to collect intelligence.
court papers state that one document related to a foreign adversary’s plans for a missile launch, while another detailed US government plans for covert action and included intelligence blaming an adversary for an attack.
The indictment also suggests Bolton was aware of the impropriety of sharing classified information with people not authorized to receive it, citing an April news media interview in which he chastised Trump administration officials for using Signal to discuss sensitive military details.
Though the anecdote is meant by prosecutors to show Bolton understood proper protocol for government secrets, Bolton’s legal team may also point to it to argue a double standard in enforcement since the Justice Department is not known to have opened any investigation into the Signal episode.
The case, the third against a Trump adversary in the last month, will also unfold against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department is pursuing the President’s political enemies while at the same time sparing his allies from scrutiny.
Case Deemed As Trump’s Intimidation Effort
Bolton foreshadowed that argument in a defiant statement in which he denied the charges and called them part of an “intensive effort” by Trump to “intimidate his opponents.”
“Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts.”
John Bolton
Even so, the indictment is significantly more detailed in its allegations than earlier cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Unlike the other two cases filed over the last month by a hastily appointed US Attorney, this one was signed by career national security prosecutors.
Though the investigation burst into public view in August when the FBI searched Bolton’s home in Maryland and his office in Washington, the inquiry was already well underway by the time Trump took office a second time this past January.
