Former National Security Advisor John Bolton turned himself in to federal authorities Friday morning in Maryland and pleaded not guilty after being indicted on charges of keeping top secret documents at his home and sharing classified information with family members.
Bolton’s criminal case is the third brought by the Justice Department in recent weeks against someone deemed adversarial to President Donald Trump. It also amplifies concerns that Trump is using the nation’s top law enforcement agency to punish political foes.
Bolton didn’t comment to reporters as he entered the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, about 13 miles northeast of Washington.
But he said Thursday in a statement after a grand jury returned the 18-count indictment against him that he has “become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts.”
Who is John Bolton?
The 76-year-old Bolton is a longtime Republican who spent more than a year as National Security Advisor during Trump’s first term. His 17-month tenure was rife with clashes over countries including North Korea and Iran, with him voicing skepticism over Trump’s outreach toward and summit with Kim Jong Un. On Iran, Bolton backed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal but favored regime change and was frustrated when Trump called off a planned military strike in 2019.
The Republican president fired Bolton in 2019 and the two continued to clash in public comments long after Bolton left office. Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened,” was released in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election and was highly critical of Trump and his first term in the White House. The Trump administration sued to block the book’s release, claiming it disclosed classified information, but the Justice Department under President Joe Biden abandoned the lawsuit in 2021.
Charges levied against Bolton
The indictment, which was brought against Bolton on Thursday, also accuses him of sharing with his wife and daughter more than 1,000 pages of notes that included sensitive national defense information he had gleaned from meetings with other U.S. government officials and foreign leaders or from intelligence briefings. Authorities say some of the information was exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian government hacked Bolton’s email account he used to send the diary-like notes about his activities to his relatives.
“Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Thursday.
The indictment also states that authorities believe Bolton exchanged classified materials through a non-secured email account, further complicating his defense.
Other targets of Trump's administration
This indictment raises questions regarding the broader implications for political adversaries facing legal scrutiny, paralleling recent actions against figures like New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has also faced legal challenges amid her battles with Trump.