 "Ex-Trump adviser Bolton arrives at court to surrender on charges of mishandling classified information")
Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton surrendered Friday at a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, facing an 18-count indictment alleging he stored top-secret records at home and shared diary-like notes containing classified information with relatives.
Bolton did not speak to reporters as he entered the courthouse, where he is expected to make his initial appearance before a judge. He is the third prominent critic of President Donald Trump to face legal action in recent weeks, amid concerns that longstanding norms protecting federal law enforcement from political pressure are eroding.
The indictment claims Bolton shared sensitive material with two relatives for potential use in a book he was writing, including details from intelligence briefings and meetings with senior officials and foreign leaders.
In a statement on Thursday, Bolton said, “I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose [Trump’s] abuse of power.”
Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, reiterated that the former national security adviser did not unlawfully share or store classified information. Bolton and his legal team were seen entering the U.S. Marshals Service office to formally surrender, marking the next stage in the unfolding legal proceedings.
Charges against perceived adversaries
Trump, a Republican who campaigned for the presidency on a vow of retribution after facing a slew of legal woes once his first term in the White House ended in 2021, has actively pursued his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to bring charges against his perceived adversaries.
That included pushing Bondi’s Justice Department to bring charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, even driving out a prosecutor he deemed to be moving too slowly in doing so.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsBolton served as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term, before emerging as one of the president’s most vocal critics. Bolton, also a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described Trump as unfit to be president in a memoir he released last year.
The investigation of Bolton was opened in 2022, predating the Trump administration. Inside the Justice Department, the case is viewed as stronger than the prosecutions of Comey and James, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The indictment of Bolton, filed in federal court in Maryland, charges him with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information, all in violation of the Espionage Act.
Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but any sentence would be determined by a judge based on a range of factors.
In some of the chats described in the indictment, Bolton and his relatives – who are not identified – discussed using some of the material for a book. Bolton referred to the two people with whom he shared his daily notes as his ”editors,” the indictment said.
”Talking with (book publisher) because they have a right of first refusal!” Bolton wrote in one message, according to the indictment.
The two relatives referred to in the indictment are Bolton’s wife and daughter, two people familiar with the matter said.
Asked by reporters at the White House about the Bolton indictment on Thursday, Trump said: ”He’s a bad guy.”
Sharing of classified secrets
The indictment filed in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, alleges that between 2018 and this past August, Bolton shared with two relatives more than 1,000 pages of information about his day-to-day activities in government.
The material included “diary-like” entries with information classified as high as top secret that he had learned from meetings with other U.S. government officials, from intelligence briefings or talks with foreign leaders, according to the indictment. After sending one document, Bolton wrote in a message to his relatives, “None of which we talk about!!!” In response, one of his relatives wrote, “Shhhhh,” prosecutors said.
The indictment says that among the material shared was information about foreign adversaries that in some cases revealed details about sources and methods used by the government to collect intelligence.
The two family members were not identified in court papers, but a person familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic details, identified them as Bolton’s wife and daughter.
The indictment also suggests Bolton was aware of the impropriety of sharing classified information with people not authorised to receive it, citing an April news media interview in which he chastised Trump administration officials for using Signal to discuss sensitive military details. Though the anecdote is meant by prosecutors to show Bolton understood proper protocol for government secrets, Bolton’s legal team may also point to it to argue a double standard in enforcement because the Justice Department is not known to have opened any investigation into the Signal episode.
Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the “underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago.”
He said the charges stem from portions of Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career in government and included unclassified information that was shared only with his immediate family and was known to the FBI as far back as 2021.
“Like many public officials throughout history," Lowell said, “Bolton kept diaries — that is not a crime.” He said Bolton “did not unlawfully share or store any information.”
Controversy over a book
Bolton suggested the criminal case was an outgrowth of an unsuccessful Justice Department effort after he left government to block the publication of his 2020 book “The Room Where It Happened,” which portrayed Trump as grossly misinformed about foreign policy.
The Trump administration asserted that Bolton’s manuscript contained 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 had classified information.
In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security adviser. His brief tenure was characterized by disputes with the president over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine. Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure.
Bolton subsequently criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government in his book, including by alleging that Trump directly tied providing military aid to Ukraine to that country’s willingness to conduct investigations into Joe Biden, who was soon to be Trump’s Democratic 2020 election rival, and members of Biden’s family.
Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”
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