Ex-Trump Adviser John Bolton Indicted for Mishandling Classified Information

According to Rokna, citing The Guardian, Former national security adviser expected to appear in court Friday following federal charges under Espionage Act.

John Bolton, who once served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser and later became one of his most outspoken Republican critics, is facing criminal prosecution for allegedly mishandling classified materials. He is expected to surrender to authorities and make his first court appearance on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Bolton under the Espionage Act, accusing him of unlawfully transmitting and retaining highly sensitive national security information. The 18-count indictment was issued by a federal grand jury in Maryland on Thursday.

Prosecutors claim Bolton shared diary entries containing confidential material with two unnamed individuals during and after his time in the White House. The indictment notes that he frequently documented his daily meetings and briefings on yellow notepads before transferring them to electronic files, some of which were later shared through personal email and messaging accounts.

This case marks the third time in recent weeks that federal prosecutors have brought charges against a prominent critic of the former president.

Asked about the indictment, Trump said he was unaware of it but referred to Bolton as “a bad guy.”

Although Bolton’s relationship with the Trump White House ended bitterly, the investigation intensified under the Biden administration after intelligence agencies raised concerns about classified disclosures. The Justice Department’s decision to proceed reportedly stemmed from evidence suggesting willful mishandling of restricted information.

Bolton has denied wrongdoing. “I look forward to defending my actions and exposing this abuse of power,” he said in a statement. His attorney, Abbe Lowell, emphasized that the entries in question were drawn from personal diaries spanning his 45-year public career, describing them as “unclassified and long known to the FBI.”

Federal investigators allege that Bolton used personal communication channels to send more than a thousand pages of notes to individuals who lacked security clearance. In August, FBI agents searched his Maryland home and Washington office, seizing papers and digital files, some bearing classification markings.

Those materials, officials say, were used in preparation for Bolton’s 2020 memoir The Room Where It Happened, which offered a critical account of the Trump administration and led to earlier attempts by the Justice Department to block its publication.

Although that earlier lawsuit was dropped in 2021, the investigation was later reopened after U.S. intelligence reportedly learned of additional emails linked to Bolton through a foreign intelligence source.

Senior intelligence officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel, are said to have reviewed the communications earlier this year, concluding that they contained transcriptions of classified material — findings that appear to have reignited the Justice Department’s case.