What you need to know
• JUST IN: John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has been indicted. He faces eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
• Details of the probe: Sources previously told CNN that part of the Justice Department’s investigation centers around notes he was making to himself in an AOL email account — at times writing summaries of his activities like diary entries — when he was working for Trump.
• More on his career: Bolton, a longtime government official and United Nations ambassador with a high-level security clearance, served in the first Trump administration as national security adviser from 2018 to 2019. Even after exiting the government, he continued to maintain his private office in Washington, where he often would go to work in the early morning hours.
CNN analyst says Bolton’s alleged conduct “is more serious” than Trump’s indictment
CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig said today that the charges against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton could be more serious than previous investigations into the handling of classified material, including Trump’s.
“If prosecutors can prove these charges — that’s always the big if — then John Bolton’s conduct, to me, is more serious certainly than we saw in the investigations of Hillary Clinton, of Mike Pence, of Joe Biden and even more serious than the conduct that got Donald Trump indicted,” Honig told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Honig argued that these charges are more grave because he is alleged to have “actively disseminated” classified information of the “highest level” to family members who had no security clearance. Honig also pointed out that when Bolton’s email was hacked by Iran, he allegedly omitted that he had been using the email account to share such information.
The analyst also said that Bolton’s indictment is different than that of Trump’s other political opponents, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Honig pointed to Bolton not being part of Trump’s social media post that called for other adversaries to be investigated.
“But more importantly, Jake, the reporting is and the indictment seems to reflect, this investigation predates the current Trump administration,” Honig said. “And if that’s the case, if it goes back to the prior Biden administration, I think that’s really going to undermine any malicious prosecution claim that John Bolton has.”
The analyst added that the charges against Bolton “are vastly more serious” than the charges against Comey and James.
Bolton decries indictment and Trump's "abuse of power"
In the first reaction to his indictment, John Bolton says he is a victim of weaponization by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.
Read his statement in full:
“For four decades, I have devoted my life to America’s foreign policy and national security. I would never compromise those goals. I tried to do that during my tenure in the first Trump Administration but resigned when it became impossible to do so.
“Donald Trump’s retribution against me began then, continued when he tried unsuccessfully to block the publication of my book, The Room Where It Happened, before the 2020 election, and became one of his rallying cries in his re-election campaign.
“Now, I have 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.
“My book was reviewed and approved by the appropriate, experienced career clearance officials. When my e-mail was hacked in 2021, the FBI was made fully aware. In four years of the prior administration, after these reviews, no charges were ever filed.
“Then came Trump 2 who embodies what Joseph Stalin’s head of secret police once said, ‘You show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.’
“Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America’s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom. I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power.”
FBI agents did a last-minute check of active operations due to indictment
As Justice Department prosecutors prepared to seek a grand jury indictment against former national security adviser John Bolton, FBI officials ordered agents to conduct a last-minute assessment on whether operations would be harmed by disclosures in the case, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The last-minute order to FBI employees centered on specific information expected to be included in court documents as prosecutors prepare a possible trial, the person briefed on the matter said.
It’s not the first time the FBI has done such an internal assessment. Bolton was previously investigated over his alleged use of classified information in a book he published about his time serving in the first Trump administration.
Later, Bolton was the victim of breach by suspected Iranian hackers, which raised concerns that Bolton was using an AOL account to send himself notes that contained sensitive information during his time in office.
FBI officials conducted assessments to try to determine whether possible damage occurred from the hack.
Bolton's home had a SCIF when he worked in the White House
While agents say they found several printed summaries Bolton was writing for his own keeping in his Bethesda, Maryland, home this summer, the former national security adviser at one time years earlier had a space in the house where he could have kept classified records.
The space, called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, existed in his home while he was in Trump’s White House, from September 2018 through fall of 2019.
In September 2019, as the SCIF in his house was being decommissioned, federal authorities removed all the classified equipment and marked classified documents in the space, and he was told at that time he could no longer keep classified information at home, the indictment says.
But even then, he wasn’t authorized to have classified information in his AOL, Google or other commercial messaging systems, prosecutors say.
Indictment uses Bolton’s own words against him
The indictment points to Bolton’s own commentary in media interviews around the sharing of classified information and use of encrypted chats to demonstrate “his understanding of how to properly handle classified information and the potential consequences of failing to do so.”
In one criticism of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time leading the State Department – cited by the indictment – Bolton said in 2017, a year prior to his service under Trump, “if I had done at the State Department what [senior U.S. Government official] did, I’d be [imprisoned] right now.”
The indictment also cites commentary from Bolton when he criticized government officials who used an encrypted chat group to discuss attack plans in the Middle East and accidentally added a magazine editor to the chat.
“I mean, to me, I just can’t even imagine opening a Signal chat group or a Telegram chat group or anything else,” Bolton said of the incident earlier this year. “The damage that’s done is that we’ve shown weakness in our operational security that our adversaries will try to exploit…. What did we build the world’s most secure telecommunications capability for if not to use it on sensitive matters.”
“When you’re on Signal, did no one in that conversation for days ever say you know maybe we ought to get off this and get back on a classified system,” Bolton continued.
Bolton's attorney responds
Bolton’s attorney Abbe Lowell responded to the charges in a statement Thursday afternoon:
Here's what prosecutors say Bolton had:
John Bolton is charged with mishandling information classified at the highest levels. Here is a rundown of what prosecutors say Bolton improperly kept or sent to others:
- Several documents that included sensitive sourcing methods, including human intelligence sources.
- Documents that included intelligence gathered on foreign leaders
- Several documents that outlined planned foreign attacks, including foreign intelligence or even direct quotes from foreign figures.
- At least one document that included intelligence about adversary’s plans for attack an against U.S. military in another country
- At least two documents that detailed covert actions undertaken by the United States.
Why was Bolton sending notes? Indictment says: “For Diary in the future!!!”
The indictment outlines how Bolton, during his time as Trump’s national security adviser, “took detailed notes documenting his day-to-day meetings, activities, and briefings.” Prosecutors say he would send notes describing his daily activities in detail to the two unnamed people in his indictment, which CNN has reported are his wife and daughter.
“Frequently, Bolton handwrote these notes on yellow notepads throughout his day at the White House complex or in other secure locations, and then later re-wrote his notes in a word processing document on an electronic device,” the indictment says.
“Often, Bolton’s notes described the secure setting or environment in which he learned the national defense and classified information that he was memorializing in his notes,” prosecutors say in the indictment.
“For example, a description of classified information related to a foreign government’s activities might begin with ‘the intel briefer said…’ Or a description of classified information learned during a military briefing might begin with ‘while in the Situation Room, I learned that…’”
Bolton would send these notes often beginning with their initials followed by “start here” and referred to them at least once as his “editors,” the indictment says. The purpose of creating a group chat in which he would later share his notes taken during his work as a national security advisor, the indictment says, was “For Diary in the future!!!”
Bolton case assigned to Obama-appointed judge in Maryland
A federal judge appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama will oversee John Bolton’s criminal case.
US District Judge Theodore Chuang was randomly assigned Bolton’s case after the former Trump national security adviser was indicted Thursday over his alleged mishandling of classified information.
Chuang was appointed to the bench by Obama in 2014.
From his courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, Chuang has handled some notable Trump-related cases over the years, including a challenge during Trump’s first term to the president’s controversial travel ban.
More recently, Chuang ruled in March that Elon Musk’s actions around the shuttering of USAID were unlawful, as then-Trump administration official’s Department of Government Efficiency moved with lightning speed to dismantle various federal agencies.
“The court finds that Defendants’ unilateral actions to shut down USAID likely violated the United States Constitution,” Chuang ruled at the time.
Prior to joining the federal bench, Chuang served as a top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security, and, years before that, he worked as a federal prosecutor in Massachusetts.
Bolton allegedly shared "more than a thousand pages" of "diary-like entries"
Bolton is charged with 18 counts of retaining and sharing classified information related to national defense in the years following his firing from the Trump administration in 2019 and up through this year.
According to the indictment, Bolton shared “more than a thousand pages” of “diary-like entries” during his time as Trump’s national security adviser, “that contained information classified up to the TOP SECRET” level.
“On other occasions, Bolton used his personal non-governmental email accounts, such as email accounts hosted by AOL and Google, to email information classified” to the individual’s personal email accounts.
Those entries, prosecutors say, were printed and remained on personal devices used by Bolton and others in his home.
Both individuals he was sharing with – who are unnamed – are related to Bolton, prosecutors said, and didn’t have the authority to access classified information.
CNN reported earlier that Bolton allegedly shared highly classified information with his wife and daughter over email, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Trump says he wasn’t aware of Bolton indictment, calling former national security adviser “a bad person”
President Donald Trump responded Thursday to the news John Bolton has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland, telling CNN his former national security adviser is “a bad guy.”
“I didn’t know that—you’re telling for the first time, but I think he’s, you know, a bad person. I think he’s a bad guy,” Trump, responding to CNN’s Kristen Holmes on the news of Bolton’s indictment, said. “Yeah, he’s a bad guy, too bad, but that’s the way it goes, right?”
Bolton, who has been under investigation for alleged unlawful handling of classified information, becomes the third high-profile Trump political enemy to be indicted in less than a month.
He allegedly shared highly classified information with his wife and daughter over email, sources told CNN.
In a follow-up exchange, Trump said Thursday he hasn’t reviewed the case against Bolton.
“No, I haven’t, I haven’t, but I just think he’s a bad person,” Trump told CNN.
Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton indicted
John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-adversary, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland.
Bolton, who has been under investigation for alleged unlawful handling of classified information, becomes the third high-profile Trump political enemy to be indicted in less than a month.
He allegedly shared highly classified information with his wife and daughter over email, sources told CNN.
Sources previously told CNN that part of the Justice Department’s investigation centers around notes he was making to himself in an AOL email account — at times writing summaries of his activities like diary entries — when he was working for Trump.
FBI agents executed a search warrant on Bolton’s Maryland home and Washington, DC, office this summer. The agents seized multiple documents labeled “secret,” “confidential,” and “classified,” including some about weapons of mass destruction, according to court records.
Bolton is expected to self-surrender on Friday.
DOJ investigation of Bolton focused on diary-like notes in his AOL email account
Part of the Justice Department’s investigation of John Bolton centered around notes he was making to himself in an AOL email account — at times writing summaries of his activities like diary entries — when he was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, and whether they contained classified information, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.
Bolton’s lawyer has maintained he did not have anything inappropriate in his home and office following his federal service.
Bolton, a longtime government official and United Nations ambassador with a high-level security clearance, served in the first Trump administration as national security adviser from 2018 to 2019. Even after exiting the government, he continued to maintain his private office in Washington, where he often would go to work in the early morning hours.
He’s long been known as a meticulous note-taker. Bolton also has had assistants who could have had access to his notes, sources familiar with the investigation have told CNN.
Classified document mishandling investigations often look at whether sensitive information is kept in an unsecured way, such as if others had access, even if a person wasn’t intending to share them information with others.
What was found when Bolton’s home and office were searched
A key development in the case against Bolton was the FBI searches of his Washington, DC, office and Bethesda, Maryland, home in August, which yielded multiple documents labeled “secret,” confidential,” and “classified,” after years of prosecutors’ work on the case.
According to unsealed court filings, federal investigators seized these items from the locations:
- Documents with the heading “Weapons of Mass Destruction Classified Documents”
- Typed documents in folders labeled “Trump I-IV”
- A white binder labeled “statements and reflections to allied strikes
- Travel memo documents with pages labeled secret
- Documents about the US Mission to the United Nations - Confidential Documents
- Government communications plan records
- Multiple iPhones, computers, hard drives and USB drives
After the search, Bolton’s attorney Abbe Lowell said the documents from his office with classification markings dated back to 1998 through 2006, and that he had nothing inappropriately stored or kept.
Prosecutors told judges the searches this summer were part of their investigation into the unauthorized removal and retention of classified records and the improper gathering, transmitting or losing of national defense information. At the time, both Bolton’s AOL account and the work on his book manuscript were cited as potential reasons for the searches.
