On October 16, former national security adviser and prominent Trump critic John Bolton was indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland, his state of residence.
Bolton’s indictment accuses him of “eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.” He is accused of illegally retaining “documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense, including information classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level…”
This follows an August 22 raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on Bolton’s house, which sought to retrieve apparently classified national security documents.
Bolton and his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, immediately fired back, with Bolton stating:
“Donald Trump’s retribution against me began then [during Trump’s first administration], 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,” Bolton said. “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.”
NBC
Lowell added that Bolton was being wrongfully investigated and indicted for including obscure but unclassified information that was known by the FBI as far back as 2021. Bolton’s argument relating to the publishing of his book is also significant; books of the nature he published are carefully scrutinized (a process called prepublication review) for their inclusion of sensitive information. If his published work did include classified material, it would not have been published, or published in an edited form that removes such material.
Bolton is expected to surrender to the federal government on Friday, then appear in court later that day.
On June 2023, Trump and aide Walt Nauta were indicted for illegally retaining and mishandling classified documents. The case was thrown out in questionable circumstances, as the judge presiding the case, Aileen Cannon, had little experience, was a Trump appointee, and a member of the far-right Federalist Society. It is doubtful that Bolton will receive the same privileges in court that Trump enjoyed.
