It was not immediately clear what charges Bolton faced.
The indictment comes after court documents made public last month revealed that Bolton was under federal investigation for potential mishandling classified information.
OTHER TRUMP FOES CHARGED Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations as well as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term before emerging as one of the president’s most vocal critics.
In his Maryland home, agents seized two cell phones, documents in folders labeled “Trump I-IV” and a binder labeled “statements and reflections to Allied Strikes,” according to court documents.
Court records also show that a foreign entity hacked Bolton’s email account, though details of the hack are redacted.
GREENBELT, Maryland, Oct. 16 (Reuters) – According to a person familiar with the situation, John Bolton, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump, was indicted on Thursday. This is the third time in recent weeks that the Justice Department has obtained criminal charges against a critic of the Republican president.
What charges Bolton was facing were not immediately apparent. A request for comment from his attorney was not immediately answered.
Following the release of court documents last month, which showed that Bolton was the subject of a federal investigation for possibly mishandling classified material, the indictment was issued. Bolton’s charges were not disclosed in the CNN report.
Bolton’s attorney has previously denied that Bolton committed any wrongdoing.
Trump has abandoned decades-old conventions intended to shield federal law enforcement from political pressures. Trump ran for president on a platform of retaliation after his first term ended in 2021 and he faced numerous legal issues.
He has aggressively pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department to file charges against his alleged enemies in recent months, even dismissing a prosecutor he believed was taking too long.
Additional Trump opponents were charged.
U was Bolton. A. During his first term, he served as both the White House national security adviser and ambassador to the UN before becoming one of Trump’s most outspoken detractors. He said in a memoir published last year that Trump was unfit to be president.
The accusations against Bolton follow the Justice Department’s indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously filed a civil fraud case against Trump and his family real estate company, and former FBI director James Comey, who looked into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Comey, who Trump fired in 2017, is accused of obstructing Congress and lying to Congress. He entered a not guilty plea.
James is accused of lying to a financial institution and committing bank fraud. She will appear in federal court later this month and has denied any wrongdoing.
top officials at the U. S. Even though some line prosecutors in Maryland and lawyers in the National Security Division initially expressed concern that more investigation was required and that the case was being hurried, the Justice Department had been pressing for quick charges against Bolton, two people familiar with the situation previously told Reuters.
One of those sources added that prosecutors later decided they were comfortable moving forward after spending more time reviewing the evidence and preparing the case over the weekend.
The FBI searched the home of Bolton.
According to partially unsealed search warrants filed in federal court, FBI agents searched Bolton’s home and office in August in an attempt to find evidence of potential violations of the Espionage Act, which crimes the removal, retention, or transmission of national defense records.
Agents confiscated two cell phones, documents in “Trump I-IV” folders, and a binder titled “statements and reflections to Allied Strikes” from his Maryland residence, according to court filings.
They also discovered documents marked “confidential,” such as those mentioning WMDs, the U.S. A. mission to the United Nations, as well as additional U.S. S. . the strategic communications of the government within his Washington, D.C. office. as stated in court documents.
Although the specifics of the hack are redacted, court documents also reveal that Bolton’s email account was compromised by a foreign entity. The records the FBI seized were standard documents for a former government official to have, according to Bolton’s attorney.
After leaving the White House in 2021, Trump allegedly transported classified documents to his Florida home and refused to return them despite repeated government requests, leading to his own indictment on Espionage Act violations. Trump entered a not guilty plea, and the case was dismissed following his November 2024 reelection victory.
The United States is spearheading the case against Bolton. S. . Maryland lawyer’s office. A separate investigation into Trump’s longtime opponent, Democratic U.S. A. Analyzing California Senator Adam Schiff for potential mortgage fraud. Schiff has not been charged with any crimes and has denied any wrongdoing.
By Sarah N. Editing by Scott Malone, Noeleen Walder, and Bill Berkrot; Lynch in Greenbelt, Maryland; Luc Cohen in New York for additional reporting.
We adhere to the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles as our standards. creates a new tab.
The Sarah N. Lynch serves as the principal reporter for Reuters in the United States. A. Washington, DC’s Justice Department. She has covered a wide range of topics during her time on the beat, including the Mueller report, the widespread use of federal agents to suppress protesters after George Floyd’s murder, the department’s prosecutions after the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. S. capitol.
