President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton was indicted in Maryland on Thursday for allegedly mishandling classified information by sharing diary entries about his time in the White House with family members.
Bolton is the third prominent Trump critic to be indicted in recent weeks, following charges against former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud. All three have denied wrongdoing.
Asked by reporters about the Bolton indictment, Mr. Trump said he was not aware of it, but said: “I think he’s a bad guy.”
In a statement, Bolton said he has “become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department,” and argued that Mr. Trump “embodies what Joseph Stalin’s head of secret police once said, ‘You show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.'”
“I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power,” Bolton wrote.
Bolton was charged in the 26-page indictment with 18 criminal counts, including eight counts of transmitting national defense information and 10 counts of retaining national defense information.
The indictment alleges he “abused his position as National Security Advisor by sharing more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities” with two unnamed relatives, including material that had a top secret classification.
It says he sent “diary-like entries” to the two people using a nongovernmental email, “such as email accounts hosted by AOL and Google.” Those entries allegedly included classified information up to the top secret and sensitive compartmented information level, a designation that means it was derived from sensitive intelligence sources.
Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, denied that Bolton illegally shared or retained information.
“These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career – records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021,” Lowell said in a statement Thursday. “Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries – that is not a crime.”
At some point between 2019 and 2021, the indictment says, Bolton’s email account was hacked by a “cyber actor” believed to be linked to Iran. It alleges that Bolton told federal officials about the hack but didn’t say that his account had been used to send classified information, or that he had shared this material with two relatives.
The charges say Bolton received a haunting email about the hack in 2021, warning, “I do not think you would be interested in the FBI being aware of the leaked content of John’s email” and calling it “the biggest scandal since Hillary’s emails were leaked.”
Bolton is also accused in the indictment of printing out some of the documents with national defense information and storing them at his home in Montgomery County, Maryland. Prosecutors allege some of this information was also saved and stored on personal electronic devices used by Bolton and others in his personal residence.
The indictment says printouts of the diary entries — and electronic files showing he sent the messages — were found in Bolton’s home and office during an FBI search in August. According to unsealed court papers, agents found records marked classified during the searches.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement after the indictment was handed down: “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law.”
What information is Bolton accused of mishandling?
The diary entries allegedly included “detailed information that BOLTON learned from meetings with senior members of the U.S. Government, intelligence briefings from members of the intelligence community and military, discussions with foreign leaders and foreign intelligence and military organizations, and intelligence products and reports.”
The indictment outlines the types of information Bolton is accused of unlawfully retaining and sharing. It includes intelligence on attacks by an adversarial group in another country, intelligence that a foreign government was planning a missile launch in the future, covert actions planned by the U.S. and intelligence about what foreign governments knew about a planned attack against the U.S.
In some cases, the indictment says, Bolton and his relatives traded observations about the diary entries. “Stuff coming to cheer you… up!!!” Bolton allegedly wrote in one message affixed to a 20-page document.
Bolton has faced years of scrutiny over classified info
Mr. Trump has had a rocky relationship with Bolton since he left his post as national security adviser in 2019 amid disagreements over Middle East policy. At the time, Bolton said he offered his resignation, but Mr. Trump said he asked Bolton to resign.
Bolton then wrote a book about his tenure — “The Room Where It Happened” — that portrayed the president in an unflattering light. Mr. Trump claimed that Bolton “illegally released much Classified Information” in his book, calling him “a lowlife who should be in jail.”
None of the classified information that led to Thursday’s charges was published in the book, the indictment says.
The first Trump administration tried to stop the publication of the book and later sued him for the profits, arguing it contained classified information. The Justice Department opened a criminal inquiry into whether Bolton had published classified information, claiming he had failed to complete a prepublication review — which Bolton has denied.
In a late September event at the Harvard Kennedy School, Bolton said, “I’m very confident that there’s nothing in the book that’s classified. That’s why there was a prepublication review.”
In June 2020, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth denied the Justice Department’s effort to stop the publication of Bolton’s book, but after reviewing the classified materials at issue, said in his ruling that Bolton “likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations.”
“Defendant Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States,” Lamberth wrote. “He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability.”
DOJ charges a third Trump foe
The charges against Bolton came after a different prosecutor’s office — the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia — brought criminal charges against Comey and James, who have also drawn Mr. Trump’s ire for years. They have denied all wrongdoing and argued the charges against them are driven by politics.
The Trump administration has lashed out at Bolton in the past. Within 24 hours of Mr. Trump’s second inauguration, his administration removed Bolton’s Secret Service protection. Bolton had been granted the protection by the Biden administration in December 2021, after a series of threats from Iran that were linked to retaliation for a drone strike ordered by Mr. Trump during Bolton’s tenure. That strike resulted in the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
The charges against Bolton also follow investigations into Mr. Trump and former President Joe Biden after classified documents were allegedly found in their homes.
In Mr. Trump’s case, the Justice Department brought criminal charges in 2023 accusing the then-former president of mishandling sensitive documents and conspiring to obstruct justice. The charges were later dismissed after a federal judge found a Justice Department special counsel had been unlawfully appointed.
And in Biden’s case, a special counsel found he “willfully” retained classified documents, but decided no criminal charges were warranted.
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