Federal charges have been brought against John Bolton, who was Donald Trump’s national security adviser before turning into a vociferous opponent of the president.
A grand jury in Maryland heard the Department of Justice’s case Thursday and decided there was sufficient evidence to indict Bolton, who later claimed innocence in a statement.
It follows a search of Bolton’s residence and workplace conducted by FBI investigators in August as part of an inquiry into how secret material was handled.
With the indictment, Bolton, 76, becomes the third political rival of the US president to be charged in recent weeks. He might spend decades behind bars.
A 26-page indictment filed Thursday in a Greenbelt, Maryland, court accuses Bolton of ten counts of unlawfully retaining national defense information (NDI) and eight charges of transmitting NDI.
He is accused by prosecutors of using his personal email and other messaging applications to unlawfully convey top-secret material about US national defense.
“These documents revealed intelligence about future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations,” according to the court filings.
For each offense, Bolton faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail if convicted. On Friday, he is anticipated to turn himself in to the police.
“No one is above the law,” said US Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement announcing the convictions.
In a statement, Bolton accused Trump of attempting “retribution against me” and said he looked forward to defending his “lawful conduct” in court.
Bolton claimed, “I am now the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to bring charges against people he [Trump] considers his enemies that have previously been denied or that misrepresent the facts.”
The allegations, according to Bolton’s attorney Abbe Lowell, were based on journal entries his client wrote during his 45-year public service career.
“Like many public officials throughout history, Amb Bolton kept diaries – that is not a crime,” stated Mr. Lowell.
“Unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021,” he said of the records.
CNN reports that Bolton allegedly told his wife and daughter about the information.
“Diary-like entries from Bolton’s time as the National Security Advisor” are among the unapproved documents, which were purportedly “printed and stored” at Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, residence.
In 2019, Bolton left Trump’s first administration. In his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, he described his time working for Trump and painted him as a geopolitically ignorant president.
The White House sued to prevent the book’s publication, claiming it was improperly vetted and contains classified material. Days later, the book was published when a judge rejected the motion.
After revealing some facts in the book, the US Department of Justice launched an investigation to see whether Bolton had improperly handled secret material.
When asked about the indictment during his White House appearance on Thursday, Trump stated that Bolton was “a bad guy” but that he was unaware of it.
Former Trump-critical officials, like Bolton, who was George W. Bush’s ambassador to the UN, had their Secret Service protection revoked in January.
Since September, he is the third Trump opponent to face criminal charges.
In October, Letitia James, the attorney general of New York City, was charged with bank fraud.
In late September, James Comey, the former head of the FBI, was accused of lying to Congress.
Following Trump’s call on the US attorney general to bring charges against his political rivals, the cases were filed.
He posted on social media, saying, “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,”
