Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton indicted

CNN

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Katelyn Polantz, Kristen Holmes, Kaitlan Collins, CNN

(CNN) — John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-adversary, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland.

He now faces 18 charges: eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.

Prosecutors wrote in the indictment that during the time he was national security adviser to Trump, Bolton shared “more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities” with two unauthorized individuals. Both of those people were related to Bolton and didn’t have the authority to access classified information, prosecutors said.

Print-outs of “diary” entries were also found in Bolton’s home, according to the indictment.

Bolton is expected to surrender himself, as soon as Friday, to authorities at federal court in Greenbelt. His case was assigned to Judge Theodore D. Chuang, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2014.

“The FBI’s investigation revealed that John Bolton allegedly transmitted top secret information using personal online accounts and retained said documents in his house in direct violation of federal law,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. “The case was based on meticulous work from dedicated career professionals at the FBI who followed the facts without fear or favor. Weaponization of justice will not be tolerated, and this FBI will stop at nothing to bring to justice anyone who threatens our national security.”

Bolton, who has been under investigation for alleged unlawful handling of classified information, becomes the third high-profile Trump political enemy to be indicted in less than a month.

Bolton issued a statement Thursday night saying he has become Trump’s latest target in the weaponization of his Justice Department. He said that his book, “The Room Where It Happened,” was reviewed and approved by “the appropriate, experienced career clearance officials” and that the FBI was made fully aware of his email hack in 2021. In the four years of the prior administration, he said, no charges were filed against him.

“Then came Trump 2 who embodies what Joseph Stalin’s head of secret police once said, ‘You show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime,’” Bolton said.

“These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct,” he added. “Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America’s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom. I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power.”

Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, issued his own statement to CNN.

“The underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago. 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 wrote. “Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries – that is not a crime. We look forward to proving once again that Amb. Bolton did not unlawfully share or store any information.”

Bolton is accused of sharing highly classified information with his wife and daughter over email, sources told CNN.

Sources previously told CNN that part of the Justice Department’s investigation centers around notes he was making to himself in an AOL email account — at times writing summaries of his activities like diary entries — when he was working for Trump.

Years ago, US intelligence came to believe Bolton’s emails were hacked by a foreign advisory, with Iran being the top suspect, CNN previously reported.

FBI agents executed a search warrant on Bolton’s Maryland home and Washington, DC, office this summer. The agents seized multiple documents labeled “secret,” “confidential,” and “classified,” including some about weapons of mass destruction, according to court records.

The hack of the AOL account was among the reasons federal investigators searched his Maryland home in August, court records about the searches have said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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