Former US National Security Adviser Indicted Over Handling of Classified Information

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - In a dramatic and politically charged development, John R. Bolton, the hawkish former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who later became one of his most ferocious and outspoken critics, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday on 18 counts of mishandling classified information.

The indictment, unsealed in Maryland, accuses Bolton of unlawfully sharing more than a thousand pages of his detailed "diary" notes, which contained national defense information classified up to the "Top Secret" level, with two family members who lacked security clearances. 

The case, which could see the 76-year-old diplomat spend the rest of his life in prison, is a complex and surreal saga that stretches back to the final days of the first Trump administration, gained momentum under the Biden administration, and has now come to a head under the second Trump administration, making it a rare prosecutorial action that appears to have transcended the deep and bitter partisan divides of Washington.

According to the 26-page indictment, as reported by The New York Times and Fox News, Bolton is accused of using his personal AOL and Google email accounts, as well as an encrypted messaging app, to transmit his day-to-day notes from his time as national security adviser in 2018 and 2019.

These notes, which the indictment says he was meticulously assembling with the help of his family members with the intent of turning them into a book, contained a vast array of highly sensitive government secrets. The detailed list of the compromised information, as outlined in the indictment and reported by Fox News, is staggering.

It includes intelligence about future attacks by an adversarial group, sensitive information shared by a liaison partner, plans for a future missile launch by a foreign adversary, details of a covert action in a foreign country, sensitive sources and methods used to collect human intelligence, and intelligence on the leader of an adversary nation's military group, among many other top-secret matters.

The indictment makes it clear that Bolton was aware of the sensitive nature of the information he was handling.

According to The New York Times, his own written descriptions of where he learned the information often indicated that he recognized he was describing carefully guarded secrets, with entries beginning with phrases like, "The intel briefer said," and "while in the Situation Room, I learned."

The indictment also details a series of exchanges between Bolton and his family members that suggest a clear awareness of the need for discretion. A day after he joined the White House in April 2018, they began using an encrypted messaging app.

When one correspondent asked, "Why are we using this now? The encryption?" the other responded, "Yup." Bolton then chimed in: "For Diary in the future!!!!" After sending one 24-page document, he followed up with a message that read, "None of which we talked about!!!" to which one of the recipients wrote back, "Shhhhh."

Making matters significantly worse for Bolton, the indictment reveals that his personal emails were later hacked by someone associated with the government of Iran. In a surreal twist, the indictment, as reported by The New York Times, describes Bolton apparently being taunted by his hacker in a message from July 2021.

"I do not think you would be interested in the FBI being aware of the leaked content of John’s email (some of which have been attached)," the message warned, before declaring, "This could be the biggest scandal since Hillary’s emails were leaked, but this time on the GOP side! Contact me before it’s too late.” A representative for Bolton forwarded this email to the FBI, but the indictment notes that they "did not tell the U.S. government that the account contained national defense information."

President Trump, who had a famously bitter and public falling out with Bolton towards the end of his first term, greeted the news of the indictment with a grim and terse satisfaction. "He’s a bad guy," the president said in response to a reporter's question at the White House. "That’s the way it goes."

However, while Bolton is the latest in a string of figures perceived as enemies of the president to face prosecution, the investigation into him has a unique and complex history.

As reported by The New York Times, the case stretches back to the waning days of the first Trump administration, when the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into whether Bolton had mishandled classified information by disclosing certain details in his highly critical 2020 memoir, "The Room Where It Happened."

That investigation appeared to languish and was eventually shut down by the Biden administration in June 2021, which abandoned both the criminal inquiry and a civil lawsuit over the book.

The case was revived, however, after the U.S. intelligence community gathered what former officials have described as "troubling evidence" about Bolton's unclassified emails, evidence that was reportedly gathered from an adversary's spy service.

According to The New York Times, then-CIA Director John Ratcliffe briefed then-FBI Director Kash Patel on this new information, which served as the basis for a renewed investigation. This new phase of the probe, which gained momentum under the Biden administration, ultimately led to a raid on Bolton's Maryland home by FBI agents in August of this year, during which they seized boxes of papers, computer files, and other materials.

The prosecution now appears to have followed normal departmental channels under the second Trump administration, a notable contrast to the president's recent and controversial interventions in other cases.

As noted by The New York Times, President Trump has in recent weeks removed or sidelined prosecutors to secure indictments against two of his long-standing targets, former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. In Bolton's case, however, the charges were signed off on by career prosecutors, including Kelly O. Hayes, the U.S. attorney in Maryland, in conjunction with the Justice Department’s national security division.

In a statement, Attorney General Pam Bondi welcomed the charges. "Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable," she said, as reported by both The New York Times and Fox News.

"No one is above the law." FBI Director Kash Patel also issued a statement, asserting that "Weaponization of justice will not be tolerated, and this FBI will stop at nothing to bring to justice anyone who threatens our national security."

Bolton, in his own statement, declared that the indictment was part of an "intimidation campaign against critics of Trump." "I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power," he said. His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, stated that the facts of the case "were investigated and resolved years ago" and that Bolton, like many public officials, "kept diaries — that is not a crime."

The indictment is particularly ironic given Bolton's own history as a prolific and often harsh television pundit. The charging document, as reported by The New York Times, uses some of his own past statements against him, including a declaration he made about Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server: "I’d be in jail right now." Prosecutors also cited his more recent criticism of the Trump administration for its use of a commercial messaging app to discuss a military strike.

If convicted, Bolton, who was investigated under the Espionage Act, could face a maximum potential sentence of 10 years for each of the 18 counts. He is expected to surrender to the authorities on Friday.

The case adds another complex and high-profile chapter to the ongoing national saga of the mishandling of classified information, a saga that has already ensnared a former president, a former secretary of state, and a current president, and which now threatens to consume one of the nation's most prominent and controversial foreign policy figures.