Former Trump nationwide safety adviser John Bolton was indicted by a grand jury Thursday on fees that he allegedly unlawfully transmitted and retained categorized paperwork.
The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in Maryland, fees Bolton with eight counts of illegal transmission of nationwide protection info in addition to 10 counts of illegal retention of nationwide protection info.
Prosecutors accuse Bolton of utilizing a non-government private e mail account and messaging utility to transmit at the least eight paperwork to unauthorized people that contained info categorized at ranges starting from Secret to High Secret.
Seven of the transmissions allegedly occurred through the time when Bolton was serving at Trump’s nationwide safety adviser in 2018 and 2019, whereas one other doc was allegedly despatched by Bolton simply days after President Donald Trump eliminated him from the administration in September of 2019.
The transfer comes on the heels of the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James as President Donald Trump continues what critics name a campaign of retribution towards his perceived political foes.
Bolton has been a goal of Trump’s ire since leaving Trump’s first administration and publishing a tell-all guide. Federal brokers in August searched Bolton’s Maryland residence and Washington, D.C., workplace, associated to allegations that Bolton possessed categorized info.
Prosecutors say one doc listed within the indictment “reveals intelligence about future assault by adversarial group out of the country.” Others allegedly include details about overseas companions sharing delicate info with the U.S. intelligence neighborhood; intelligence associated to a overseas adversary’s missile launch plans; intelligence on leaders of a U.S. adversary; and one which detailed plans of covert motion by the U.S. authorities.
Former Nationwide Safety Advisor John Bolton listens to a query from a pupil on the John F. Kennedy Jr Discussion board on the Kennedy College of Authorities at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 29, 2025.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
The indictment accuses Bolton of abusing his place as nationwide safety adviser by sharing “greater than a thousand pages” of data in “diary-like entries” about his day-to-day actions with two recipients recognized solely as “Particular person 1” and “Particular person 2,” who prosecutors say are Bolton’s kin.
Prosecutors additional allege that Bolton unlawfully retained paperwork, writing and notes containing nationwide protection info ranging to ranges of High Secret and Delicate Compartmented Info at his dwelling in Maryland, saved each as paper recordsdata and on a lot of private gadgets.
The indictment says that sooner or later after Bolton left workplace as nationwide safety advisor, a cyber actor believed to be related to Iran hacked his private e mail account and gained entry to the categorized info he had beforehand emailed to his kin.
When Bolton reported the hack to U.S. authorities in July of 2021 beneath the Biden administration, prosecutors say he didn’t inform them of the allegedly delicate nationwide safety info he shared.
“There’s one tier of justice for all People,” Lawyer Normal Pamela Bondi mentioned in a DOJ assertion asserting the indictment. “Anybody who abuses a place of energy and jeopardizes our nationwide safety can be held accountable. Nobody is above the regulation.”
The ten paperwork the indictment says have been unlawfully retained by Bolton have been allegedly seized through the searches of his dwelling and workplace in August, and contained related info to the paperwork Bolton is alleged to have unlawfully transmitted throughout his time as nationwide safety adviser.
Bolton’s attorneys have denied he ever mishandled categorized info and mentioned paperwork investigators discovered of their search of his dwelling and residence have been now not thought of categorized.
Bolton has denied ever unlawfully eradicating categorized supplies from his time in authorities and has mentioned no such info was revealed in his 2019 memoir “The Room The place It Occurred.”
The investigation is being run out of the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in Maryland, not like the Comey and James probes that are being performed by the Trump-appointed U.S. lawyer within the Japanese District of Virginia, who sources say introduced the Comey and James fees against the advice of profession prosecutors.
Comey, who was indicted on fees of mendacity to Congress, and James, who’s charged with mortgage fraud, have each denied wrongdoing.
Final month, a federal decide unsealed a redacted model of the affidavit that had been assembled by prosecutors in an effort to execute their court-authorized search of Bolton’s dwelling. Many of the doc involved allegations surrounding the publication of Bolton’s guide, which the primary Trump administration unsuccessfully sued to dam.
The federal decide overseeing that lawsuit expressed grave considerations over whether or not Bolton had included extremely categorized info in his guide that would doubtlessly compromise nationwide safety.
On the day that Bolton’s dwelling and workplace have been searched, Trump mentioned that he was “unaware” of the searches however went on to name Bolton a “sleazebag.” Referencing the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago dwelling in his personal classified documents case, Trump informed reporters that having your private home searched is “not a great feeling.”
Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 40 felony counts associated to his dealing with of categorized supplies after leaving the White Home in 2021, after prosecutors mentioned he repeatedly refused to return a whole bunch of paperwork containing categorized info and took steps to thwart the federal government’s efforts to get the paperwork again.
After Trump was reelected president final November, the case was dropped because of a long-standing Justice Division coverage barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
Trump, requested about Bolton in a June 2022 Oval Workplace interview with Fox Information, mentioned, “He took categorized info and he revealed it, throughout a presidency. It is one factor to put in writing a guide after. Throughout. And I consider that he is a felony, and I consider, frankly, he ought to go to jail for that, and that in all probability, probably will occur. That is what ought to occur.”
