But the latest charges against a Trump critic, former national security adviser John Bolton, stand apart, legal specialists and former prosecutors say.
Bolton has been criminally indicted on federal charges pertaining to the alleged mishandling of classified information.
Bolton, for his part, wrote a book about his time in the Trump administration that was highly critical of the president.
“Cases that involve classified information present challenges to prosecute, but they can and are brought against both low-level and high-level officials, from time to time,” she said.
Strict procedures govern the handling of classified documents.
President Donald Trump has been vocal about his desire to have his critics looked into, and he has put pressure on the Justice Department to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social last month.
According to him, “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!)” in reference to James’s civil case and the four criminal cases he was involved in after leaving the White House in 2021.
Since then, both have been charged in cases that many experts have stated seem to be politically motivated and challenging to win in court.
However, former national security adviser John Bolton, a Trump critic, faces new charges that are unique, according to former prosecutors and legal experts.
As a former acting US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Mark Lesko stated, “I would say that comparing Bolton’s charges to Comey’s and James’ is like comparing apples to oranges.”.
Bolton has been charged with a federal crime related to allegedly mishandling classified material. Since leaving the White House in 2019, he has been an outspoken critic of Trump, even going so far as to describe him in his memoir as “stunningly uninformed” and unfit for office.
Although Bolton may have been targeted for political reasons, experts say the processes taken to obtain an indictment and the evidence gathered against him suggest a potentially stronger case than the Justice Department’s against Comey or James.
The University of North Carolina School of Law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick stated, “This misconduct that’s being alleged is both more serious and appears to have occurred over a significant period of time.”.
His indictment’s timing, following accusations against Comey and James, has raised concerns about political pressure on the legal system.
Bolton was referred to as a “sleazebag” by Trump, who once said he should be imprisoned. In his book about his tenure in the Trump administration, Bolton was scathing of the president.
Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, stated, “There is no doubt that the timing of this indictment, when combined with others, has raised questions about the strength of these charges, and why these charges are being brought now.”.
But “his conduct may very well have violated the law if the Justice Department can prove the facts alleged and show the information is properly classified,” he continued.
It is “rare” but not unprecedented to charge a high-ranking official with improperly handling classified documents, according to Carrie Cordero, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
It can be difficult to prosecute cases involving classified information, but she acknowledged that both high-level and low-level officials are occasionally the targets of such cases.
Trump was also accused of improperly keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and preventing their return, but a federal judge dismissed that case and his reelection as president negated it.
Although he did not file a criminal complaint, a special counsel also discovered that former President Joe Biden had improperly stored classified documents from his tenure as vice president.
Mr. Lesko, a former top national security official at the Justice Department, said that Bolton’s case is similar to the problems with classified documents that Trump and Biden have faced.
The handling of classified documents is subject to stringent protocols. In order to secure a conviction, the government must demonstrate that Bolton was aware that the material he was sending was classified and that he intentionally gave it to an unauthorized recipient.
Mr. Jaffer stated, “We don’t have a lot of details about why the government believes things like the diary entries and the other information he communicated by email, and why they were classified, because of the classified nature of the material at issue in this case.”.
