Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton indicted
Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton, a longtime critic of Donald Trump, has been indicted on federal charges of retaining and transmitting national defense information, US media reported on Thursday.
According to court filings, the indictment accuses Bolton of sharing more than 1,000 pages of sensitive government material with unauthorized individuals — including relatives — in violation of the Espionage Act. The case was filed in federal court in Maryland, where the FBI searched his home last summer, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser and later as US ambassador to the United Nations, was fired in 2019 and has since emerged as one of Trump’s most outspoken opponents.
The indictment includes eight counts of transmission and ten counts of retention of national defense information, each carrying a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors allege that between April 2018 and August 2025, Bolton shared classified material related to his activities as national security adviser with two unauthorized individuals. Some of the documents reportedly contained top secret information.
The indictment also mentions that Bolton’s personal email was hacked by a cyber actor linked to Iran in 2021, though investigators were informed of the breach without disclosure of the classified files stored there.
Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, strongly denied any wrongdoing, saying the charges stem from personal, unclassified diaries compiled during Bolton’s 45-year career in government.
“These are personal records shared only with immediate family and known to the FBI since 2021,” Lowell said. “Like many public officials throughout history, Ambassador Bolton kept diaries — that is not a crime.”
When asked about the indictment during an Oval Office press briefing, President Trump said he was unaware of the development but took aim at his ex-adviser:
“I think he’s a bad person — a bad guy,” Trump said. “That’s the way it goes, right?”
Bolton, known for his hardline foreign policy views, especially on Iran, served in the Trump administration from 2018 to 2019. He later authored a memoir sharply criticizing Trump’s leadership, describing him as “unfit to be president.”
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