John Bolton, who served as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser during his first term and later became a vocal critic, was charged on Thursday with storing top secret records at home and sharing with relatives diary-like notes about his time in government that officials said contained classified 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 in 2021 and gained access to sensitive material he had shared. A Bolton representative told the FBI that his emails had been hacked, prosecutors said, but did not reveal that 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 centring on a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power. Bolton served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019 and emerging as a harsh critic of the president.
The investigation that produced the criminal case was well underway when Trump took office again this past January but burst into public view in August when the FBI searched Bolton’s home in Maryland and his office in Washington.
Bolton is now the third Trump adversary prosecuted in the last month, meaning the case will unfold against the backdrop of concerns that the president is using his Justice Department to pursue political enemies while sparing allies from scrutiny. He foreshadowed that argument in a defiant statement on Thursday, 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 weaponising the Justice Department to charge those he deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts,” Bolton said.
“The underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago. These charges stem from portions of Ambassador 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,” Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a separate statement. “Like many public officials throughout history, Ambassador Bolton kept diaries — that is not a crime. We look forward to proving once again that Ambassador Bolton did not unlawfully share or store any information.”
The case follows separate indictments over the last month accusing former FBI Director James Comey of lying to Congress and New York Attorney General Letitia James of committing bank fraud and making a false statement — charges they both deny. Both cases were filed in federal court in Virginia by a prosecutor Trump hastily installed after growing frustrated that investigations into high-profile opponents had not resulted in prosecutions.
The Bolton case, by contrast, was filed in Maryland by a US attorney who, before being elevated to the position, had been a career prosecutor in the office. The indictment is significantly more detailed than the Comey or James cases. It alleges, for instance, that Bolton shared more than 1,000 pages of information about day-to-day activities with two unnamed family members and stored and shared sensitive information about foreign adversaries that, in some cases, revealed details about sources and methods used by the government to collect intelligence.
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, court papers said.
“There is one tier of justice for all Americans,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardises our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law.”
Questions about Bolton’s handling of classified information date back years. He faced a lawsuit and a Justice Department investigation after leaving office related to information in his 2020 book The Room Where It Happened, which portrayed Trump as grossly uninformed about foreign policy. The Trump administration asserted that Bolton’s manuscript included classified information that could harm national security if exposed.
Bolton’s lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer contained classified information. A search warrant affidavit that was previously unsealed said a National Security Council official had reviewed the manuscript and told Bolton in 2020 that it appeared to contain “significant amounts” of classified information, some at a top-secret level.
Lowell has said that many of the documents seized in August had been approved as part of a pre-publication review for Bolton’s book. He said many were decades old, from Bolton’s long career in the State Department, as an assistant attorney general, and as the US ambassador to the United Nations.
Bolton also served in the Justice Department during President Ronald Reagan’s administration and was the State Department’s point man on arms control during George W. Bush’s presidency. Bolton was nominated by Bush to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations, but the strong supporter of the Iraq war was unable to win Senate confirmation and resigned after serving 17 months as a recess appointment. That allowed him to hold the job temporarily without Senate confirmation.
In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security adviser. But his brief tenure was marked by disputes with the president over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine. Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure, with Trump announcing on social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton’s resignation.
Bolton subsequently criticised Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government in his 2020 book, alleging that Trump directly tied military aid to Ukraine to that country’s willingness to investigate Joe Biden — then his Democratic election rival — and members of his family. Trump responded by labelling Bolton a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.” He also claimed the book contained “highly classified information” and that Bolton “did not have approval” to publish it.
