A federal grand jury indicted former national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday, making him the third critic of President Donald Trump to face criminal charges in recent weeks.
Bolton was indicted in federal court in Maryland, where he lives and where prosecutors have been investigating whether he improperly retained classified materials after his acrimonious departure from the first Trump administration.
The indictment charges him with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
Asked about the indictment at a White House event Thursday, Trump said, “I didn’t know that,” and added, “He’s “a bad person.”
“I think he’s a bad guy, yeah, he’s a bad guy. Too bad, but that’s the way it goes,” Trump said.
The two other prominent Trump adversaries to face charges in recent weeks are former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“There is one tier of justice for all Americans,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement after Bolton was charged. “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Bolton was charged after the bureau's "investigation revealed that John Bolton allegedly transmitted top secret information using personal online accounts and retained said documents in his house in direct violation of federal law.”
Bolton denied any wrongdoing in a statement and said the indictment was politically motivated.
"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."
His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said Bolton, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration, did not break the law.
"The underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago. These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career — records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021," Lowell said in a statement.
"We look forward to proving once again that Amb. Bolton did not unlawfully share or store any information.”
The indictment alleges Bolton "abused his position" in the first Trump administration by "sharing more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities as the National Security Advisor including information relating to the national defense which was classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level-with two unauthorized individuals, namely Individuals 1 and 2."
The two were relatives of Bolton's whom he would message and email the information to, although they did not have security clearances, the court filing said.
Bolton, 76, "also unlawfully retained documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense, including information classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level, in his home in Montgomery County, Maryland," the filing said.
The Justice Department said in a news release that Bolton faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count if he is convicted but that any sentence handed down by a judge would be far less than that and in line with federal sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.
The FBI searched Bolton’s Maryland home and his Washington, D.C., office in August. Redacted search warrant applications showed law enforcement cited Bolton’s “2020 book Pre-Publication Review” and the “Hack of Bolton AOL Account by Foreign Entity” as a basis for probable cause to search his residence and office.
The foreign entity’s name was redacted in filings that were made public. The indictment says it was "a cyber actor believed to be associated with the Islamic Republic of Iran."
"A representative for Bolton notified the U.S. Government of the hack in or about July 2021, but did not tell the U.S. Government that the account contained national defense information, including classified information, that BOLTON had placed in the account from his time as National Security Advisor," the indictment said.
The book referred to in the search warrant was Bolton’s “The Room Where It Happened,” chronicling his tumultuous time as Trump’s national security adviser.
The 2020 book became problematic for Trump even before it was released during his first impeachment.
The case involved allegations that he withheld military aid to Ukraine to force it to announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Bolton said in the book that Trump had explicitly told him that was why he was withholding the aid, an account Trump denied.
Trump was acquitted in his Senate trial, and he called for Bolton to be prosecuted after his book was released.
“He released massive amounts of classified, and confidential, but classified information. That’s illegal and you go to jail for that,” Trump told Fox News in an interview at the time.
Bolton denied that the book included classified information.
Court filings related to the search warrant show the FBI had been investigating Bolton for years. Agents had interviewed him eight times from October 2020 to this June at his office, according to the application.
An inventory of items investigators took from Bolton’s office included several documents described as “classified,” “confidential” or “secret.” Some were described as “Weapons of Mass Destruction Classified Documents” and “U.S. Government Strategic Communications Plan — Confidential documents.”
The charges brought against Bolton, Comey and James largely mirror charges and claims that were brought against Trump between his first and second terms.
Trump was indicted in June 2023 on charges of retaining and mishandling classified documents from his time in the White House. He pleaded not guilty, and a Trump-appointed judge threw the case out on technical grounds last year.
Two of the other charges against Trump in the documents case were making false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The two charges against Comey are making false statements and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. He has pleaded not guilty.
James, meanwhile, was charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. The indictment alleges she falsely claimed that a home in Norfolk, Virginia, was her second residence, allowing her to obtain favorable loan terms she was not entitled to. The alleged scheme saved her about $50 a month.
James’ office sued Trump and his company in 2022, alleging they were filing misleading financial statements with banks and insurers, overvaluing and undervaluing his assets when it was to his financial benefit, and exaggerating his net worth to the tune of billions of dollars.
The scheme enabled Trump and his company to obtain bank loans and insurance policies at rates they were not entitled to, and as a result he “reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains,” James’ office has said.
The case resulted in a $464 million civil judgment against Trump last year. A divided state appeals court upheld the fraud finding in August but tossed out the financial penalty entirely, finding it was “excessive.”
Trump has denied wrongdoing in the case.
James has said the charges against her are “baseless, and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.”
Comey and James were charged after Trump urged Bondi on Truth Social on Sept. 20 to take action against the two, as well as Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
“They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” the post said. “We can’t delay any longer.”
An administration official told NBC News the public posting was meant to be sent to Bondi as a direct message.
