Former Trump national security adviser indicted

John Bolton, who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser before becoming a vocal critic of the president, has been criminally indicted on federal charges.

The Justice Department presented a case to a Maryland grand jury on Thursday, and they agreed there was enough evidence to indict Bolton, who released a statement asserting his innocence.

This comes after FBI agents searched Bolton’s home and office in August as part of an investigation into the handling of classified information.

The indictment makes Bolton, 76, the third political opponent of the US president to face charges in recent weeks. He faces decades in prison.

According to a 26-page indictment filed Thursday in a Greenbelt, Md., court, Bolton is charged with eight counts of transmitting national defense information (NDI) and 10 counts of illegally maintaining NDI.

Prosecutors accuse him of illegally transmitting top secret US national defense information using his personal email and other messaging apps.

“These documents revealed intelligence about future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign policy connections,” court documents state.

If convicted, Bolton faces up to 10 years in prison on each charge. He is expected to surrender to authorities on Friday.

“No one is above the law,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the charges.

Bolton said in a statement that he looked forward to defending his “lawful conduct” in court by accusing Trump of seeking “retaliation against me.”

“Now I have become the latest target for the Justice Department’s weaponization to accuse those it [Trump] considers him his enemies with accusations that have been previously dismissed or that distort the facts,” Bolton said.

Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the charges stem from diary notes kept by his client during his 45-year career in public service.

“Like many public servants throughout history, Amb Bolton kept a diary – it is not a crime,” Mr Lowell said.

He described the files as “unclassified, shared only with his immediate family and known to the FBI as early as 2021.”

According to CNN, Bolton shared the information with his wife and daughter.

The unauthorized information includes “diary-like entries from Bolton’s time as national security advisor” and was allegedly “printed and stored” at Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland.

Bolton was fired from the first Trump administration in 2019. His 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, chronicled his time working under Trump and portrayed him as a president misinformed about geopolitics.

The White House sued to prevent the book from being published, arguing that it contained classified information and had not been properly vetted. A judge denied the request and the book was made public a few days later.

The U.S. Department of Justice then opened an investigation into whether Bolton mishandled classified information by disclosing some information contained in the book.

Asked about the indictment at the White House on Thursday, Trump said he was not aware of it but added that Bolton was “a bad guy.”

Bolton, who served as George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, was among former officials critical of Trump who had their Secret Service protections withdrawn in January.

He is the third Trump critic to be criminally charged since September.

New York City Attorney General Letitia James was indicted on bank fraud charges in October.

Former FBI Director James Comey was accused in late September of lying to Congress.

The complaints came after Trump urged the U.S. attorney general to prosecute his political opponents.

“We can’t wait any longer, this is killing our reputation and credibility,” he wrote on social media.