Admin Charges Bolton on Classified Info10/17 06:20

   John Bolton, who served as national security adviser to President Donald 
Trump during his first term and later became a vocal critic of the Republican 
leader, was charged Thursday with storing top secret records at home and 
sharing with relatives diary-like notes about his time in government that 
contained classified information.

   GREENBELT, Md. (AP) -- John Bolton, who served as national security adviser 
to President Donald Trump during his first term and later became a vocal critic 
of the Republican leader, was charged Thursday with storing top secret records 
at home and sharing with relatives diary-like notes about his time in 
government that contained classified information.

   The 18-count indictment also suggests classified information was exposed 
when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian regime hacked Bolton's 
email account and gained access to sensitive material he had shared. A Bolton 
representative told the FBI in 2021 that his emails had been hacked, 
prosecutors say, but did not reveal he had shared classified information 
through the account or that the hackers now had possession of government 
secrets.

   The indictment sets the stage for a closely watched court case centering on 
a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for 
his hawkish views on American power and who served for more than a year in 
Trump's first administration before being fired in 2019 and publishing a 
scathingly critical book about the president.

   The case, the third against a Trump adversary in the last month, will also 
unfold against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department is pursuing 
the president's political enemies while at the same time sparing his allies 
from scrutiny. Bolton foreshadowed that argument in a defiant statement 
Thursday in which he denied the charges and called them part of an "intensive 
effort" by Trump to "intimidate his opponents."

   "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," he said.

   Even so, the indictment is significantly more detailed in its allegations 
than earlier cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York 
Attorney General Letitia James. Unlike the other two cases filed over the last 
month by a hastily appointed U.S. attorney, this one was signed by career 
national security prosecutors. And though the investigation burst into public 
view in August when the FBI searched Bolton's home in Maryland and his office 
in Washington, the inquiry was already well underway by the time Trump took 
office a second time this past January.

   Sharing of classified secrets

   The indictment, filed in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, alleges that 
between 2018 and this past August, Bolton shared with two relatives more than 
1,000 pages of information about his day-to-day activities in government.

   The material included "diary-like" entries with information classified as 
high as top secret that he had learned from meetings with other U.S. government 
officials, from intelligence briefings or talks with foreign leaders, according 
to the indictment. After sending one document, Bolton wrote in a message to his 
relatives, "None of which we talk about!!!" In response, one of his relatives 
wrote, "Shhhhh," prosecutors said.

   The indictment says that among the material shared was information about 
foreign adversaries that in some cases revealed details about sources and 
methods used by the government to collect intelligence. One document related to 
a foreign adversary's plans for a missile launch, while another detailed U.S. 
government plans for covert action and included intelligence blaming an 
adversary for an attack, court papers say.

   The two family members were not identified in court papers, but a person 
familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss 
non-public details, identified them as Bolton's wife and daughter.

   "There is one tier of justice for all Americans," Attorney General Pam Bondi 
said in a statement. "Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our 
national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law."

   The indictment also suggests Bolton was aware of the impropriety of sharing 
classified information with people not authorized to receive it, citing an 
April news media interview in which he chastised Trump administration officials 
for using Signal to discuss sensitive military details. Though the anecdote is 
meant by prosecutors to show Bolton understood proper protocol for government 
secrets, Bolton's legal team may also point to it to argue a double standard in 
enforcement since the Justice Department is not known to have opened any 
investigation into the Signal episode.

   Bolton's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the "underlying 
facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago."

   He said the charges stem from portions of Bolton's personal diaries over his 
45-year career in government and included unclassified information that was 
shared only with his immediate family and was known to the FBI as far back as 
2021.

   "Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries -- 
that is not a crime. We look forward to proving once again that Amb. Bolton did 
not unlawfully share or store any information," Lowell said.

   Controversy over a book

   Bolton suggested the criminal case was an outgrowth of an unsuccessful 
Justice Department effort after he left government to block the publication of 
his 2020 book "The Room Where It Happened," which portrayed Trump as grossly 
misinformed about foreign policy.

   The Trump administration asserted that Bolton's manuscript contained 
classified information that could harm national security if exposed. Bolton's 
lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National 
Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the 
manuscript no longer had classified information.

   "These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his 
intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone 
determines what is said about his conduct," Bolton said in a statement.

   Bolton also served in the Justice Department during President Ronald 
Reagan's administration and was a State Department point person on arms control 
during George W. Bush's presidency.

   Bolton was nominated by Bush to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United 
Nations, but the strong supporter of the Iraq war was unable to win Senate 
confirmation and resigned after serving 17 months as a Bush recess appointment. 
That allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate 
confirmation.

   In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump's third national security 
adviser. But his brief tenure was characterized by disputes with the president 
over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine.

   Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton's departure, with Trump announcing on 
social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton's resignation.

   Bolton subsequently criticized Trump's approach to foreign policy and 
government in his book, including by alleging that Trump directly tied 
providing military aid to Ukraine to that country's willingness to conduct 
investigations into Joe Biden, who was soon to be Trump's Democratic 2020 
election rival, and members of his family.

   Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a "washed-up guy" and a "crazy" 
warmonger who would have led the country into "World War Six."