Former Nationwide Safety Adviser John Bolton speaks to reporters after talking in a panel hosted by the Nationwide Council of Resistance of Iran – U.S. Consultant Workplace (NCRI-US) on the Willard InterContinental Resort on Aug. 17, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Photographs
John Bolton, a former nationwide advisor to President Donald Trump, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Maryland.
Bolton, 76, is charged in a 26-page indictment with eight counts of transmission of nationwide protection data and 10 counts of retention of nationwide protection data.
Bolton’s legal professional, Abbe Lowell, mentioned in a press release, “The underlying info on this case had been investigated and resolved years in the past.”
“These fees stem from parts of Amb. Bolton’s private diaries over his 45-year profession – data which are unclassified, shared solely along with his speedy household, and recognized to the FBI way back to 2021,” Lowell mentioned within the assertion to NBC Information.
“Like many public officers all through historical past, Amb. Bolton stored diaries – that isn’t against the law. We sit up for proving as soon as once more that Amb. Bolton didn’t unlawfully share or retailer any data,” Lowell mentioned.
Bolton, who served as Trump’s nationwide safety advisor from April 2018 via September 2019, solely to develop into a number one critic of him, is the third high-profile Trump foe to be criminally charged in current weeks after being criticized by the president.
The 26-page indictment says that Bolton, from April 2018 via this previous August, shared “greater than a thousand pages of his day-to-day actions because the Nationwide Safety Advisor — together with data regarding the nationwide protection which was labeled as much as the TOP SECRET/SCI [sensitive compartmented information] level-with two unauthorized people” who had been family members of his.
Neither of these two folks had safety clearances, the indictment says.
“Bolton additionally unlawfully retained paperwork, writings, and notes regarding the nationwide protection, together with data labeled as much as the TOP SECRET/SCI degree, in his residence in Montgomery County, Maryland,” the indictment mentioned.
Bolton is accused of electronically sending, via non-governmental messaging purposes, “diary-like entries” to the 2 different people who contained data labeled as high secret.
FBI brokers carry containers as they exit the constructing that homes the Washington workplace of former Nationwide Safety Adviser John Bolton, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 22, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz | Reuters
The indictment says that in some unspecified time in the future between September 2019 and July 2021, a cyber hacker believed to be related to Iran “hacked Bolton’s private e mail account and gained unauthorized entry to the labeled and nationwide protection data in that account, which Bolton had beforehand emailed to People 1 and a couple of whereas he was the Nationwide Safety Advisor.”
The fees in opposition to Bolton, who, like Trump, is a Republican, had been unsealed shortly after the indictment was handed to a Justice of the Peace decide in U.S. District Courtroom in Greenbelt. He faces a most doable sentence of 10 years in jail on every particular person depend if convicted, though federal sentencing pointers would advocate a a lot less-severe punishment.
Grand juries in Virginia not too long ago individually indicted former FBI Director James Comey on fees associated to allegedly mendacity to Congress, and New York Legal professional Normal Letitia James, who’s accused of financial institution fraud associated to a mortgage on a house she owns in Virginia.
They’ve denied any wrongdoing in these instances.
“There’s one tier of justice for all People,” Legal professional Normal Pamela Bondi mentioned in a press release on Bolton’s indictment. “Anybody who abuses a place of energy and jeopardizes our nationwide safety might be held accountable. Nobody is above the legislation.”
Trump was requested concerning the Bolton indictment by a reporter on the White Home.
“I did not know that,” Trump mentioned.
“You are telling me for the primary time, however I feel he is … a nasty particular person,” Trump mentioned. “Yeah, he is a nasty man. It is too dangerous. However that is the best way it goes proper? That is the best way it goes.”
FBI brokers on Aug. 22 raided Bolton’s Maryland residence and workplace in Washington, D.C.
The raids are a part of a “nationwide safety investigation searching for labeled data,” an individual accustomed to the matter informed NBC on the time.
