Former Trump aide John Bolton indicted over handling of classified material

Former national security adviser John Bolton was indicted Thursday on 18 counts of transmitting and retaining national defense information following an investigation into his handling of classified and sensitive material during the first Trump administration.

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury sitting in Greenbelt, Maryland, alleges Bolton shared with two relatives hundreds of pages of “diary-like” updates detailing his sensitive work between 2018 and 2019.

It also accuses Bolton of printing and storing many of those records at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, which FBI agents searched earlier this year.

The indictment makes Bolton, a veteran diplomat and security expert who has become a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, the third frequent target of the president to face criminal prosecution in less than a month. Grand juries in Alexandria, Virginia, have indicted former FBI director James B. Comey on charges of lying to Congress and New York Attorney General Letitia James in a bank fraud case in recent weeks. Comey pleaded not guilty last week, and James has denied the accusations against her.

Unlike those cases, which were pursued by Trump’s handpicked U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia over the objections of career staff members, the indictment against Bolton was signed by Kelly O. Hayes, a respected veteran prosecutor appointed in February to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland. Tom Sullivan, a career prosecutor who heads the office’s national security division, presented the case to the grand jury and also signed the document.

“There is one tier of justice for all Americans,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law.”

Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, has said that his client has not violated the law.

Still, senior Justice Department leaders put pressure on the office in Maryland to charge Bolton quickly as Trump has ratcheted up the pressure on the Justice Department to prosecute his perceived foes, the people familiar with the investigation said.

John Eisenberg, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, was at the White House on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with his schedule. His division has been involved in the Bolton investigation, which is typical for cases involving classified documents.

August, after federal agents removed documents and other possessions from Bolton’s home and office, Lowell described the material as “the ordinary records of a 40-year career serving this country.”

Documents found with classification markings stemmed from Bolton’s time in the administration of George W. Bush and had been cleared for his use decades ago, Lowell said at the time.

Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Bush and worked in Trump’s first term as his third national security adviser.

Agents believed they would find classified records in Bolton’s possession in part because of information they said they’d learned about a foreign adversary hacking into his AOL email account years ago, the affidavit states.

Investigators seized computers, phones, and reams of documents — including some in folders labeled “Trump I-IV” and others they said were labeled “secret,” “confidential” or “classified” — during searches of Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland, and office in downtown Washington, court records showed.

During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department also pursued an investigation of Bolton into whether he divulged classified government material in his 2020 book “The Room Where It Happened,” which offered a withering portrait of Trump as an “erratic” and “stunningly uninformed leader.” That probe did not result in charges and was closed in 2021.

Two years later, Trump himself was charged with illegally holding on to classified material under the same statute under which Bolton was being investigated. A federal judge in Florida later dismissed that case, citing issues with the legality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment to prosecute the matter.