Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton surrendered to federal authorities on Friday to face 18 criminal charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified information, making him the latest of Donald Trump’s political adversaries to face prosecution.
Bolton, 76, appeared at a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he was expected to be fingerprinted and photographed before an initial hearing. Prosecutors accuse him of illegally sharing and retaining top-secret materials, including messages transmitted via personal email and encrypted apps.
According to the indictment, Bolton allegedly shared “diary-like entries” containing sensitive intelligence with two unnamed individuals and kept classified files that exposed details about “future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations.”
The indictment also revealed that between 2019 and 2021, a hacking group believed to be linked to Iran accessed Bolton’s personal account, compromising sensitive material in his possession.
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Prosecutors say the records he stored outside secure government systems contained information protected under U.S. national security laws.
Bolton, who has long criticised Trump since leaving the White House in 2019, has denied any wrongdoing.
“I will defend my lawful conduct,” he said in a statement, adding that he had “become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those [Trump] deems his enemies.”
His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that the materials cited in the indictment were not classified. “Like many public officials throughout history, Ambassador Bolton kept diaries — that is not a crime,” Lowell said, insisting the records were “unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021.”
Since 2020, when the Justice Department attempted to prevent the publishing of Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, on the grounds that it included classified material, his treatment of private information has come under fire. While approving the book’s publication, a federal court criticized Bolton’s ruling, stating that he had “gambled with the national security of the United States.” Under the Biden administration, investigations persisted, and in August, the FBI conducted searches of Bolton’s residence and workplace, indicating a renewed interest in the matter.
The charges make Bolton the third political opponent of Trump to face indictment in recent weeks. The Justice Department has also charged former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both frequent targets of the former president’s criticism. Bolton served as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 before a contentious split with Trump over foreign policy issues, including negotiations with North Korea and Iran. Trump later revoked Bolton’s security detail and publicly accused him of “illegally releasing classified information.”
