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Getty Images<\/p>\nAna FaguyWashington and<\/p>\n
Aoife Walsh<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
Bolton, who Trump fired from his first administration in 2019, has been a vocal critic of the president<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The Department of Justice presented a case to a grand jury in Maryland on Thursday, and they agreed there was enough evidence to indict Bolton, who issued a statement maintaining his innocence.<\/p>\n
It comes after FBI agents searched Bolton’s home and office in August as part of an investigation into the handling of classified information. <\/p>\n
The indictment makes Bolton, 76, the third of the US president’s political opponents to face charges in recent weeks. He could face decades in prison.<\/p>\n
According to a 26-page indictment filed at a court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday, Bolton is charged with eight counts of transmission of national defence information (NDI) and 10 counts of unlawful retention of NDI.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors accuse him of illegally transmitting top secret information about US national defence using his personal email and other messaging apps. <\/p>\n
“These documents revealed intelligence about future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations,” the court papers state.<\/p>\n
Watch: “That’s the way it goes”, says Trump on John Bolton’s indictment<\/p>\n
If found guilty, Bolton could face up to 10 years in prison for each charge. He is expected to surrender to authorities on Friday.<\/p>\n
“No one is above the law,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the charges. <\/p>\n
Bolton said in a statement that he looked forward to defending his “lawful conduct” in court as he accused Trump of seeking “retribution against me”.<\/p>\n
“Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he [Trump] deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts,” Bolton said.<\/p>\n
Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the charges stemmed from diary entries kept by his client over his 45-year career in public service. <\/p>\n
“Like many public officials throughout history, Amb Bolton kept diaries \u2013 that is not a crime,” said Mr Lowell. <\/p>\n
He described the records as “unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021”.<\/p>\n
According to CNN, Bolton is alleged to have shared the information with his wife and daughter. <\/p>\n
The unauthorised information includes “diary-like entries from Bolton’s time as the National Security Advisor” and were allegedly “printed and stored” at Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland.<\/p>\n
Bolton was fired from Trump’s first administration<\/a> in 2019. His 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, recounted his time working under Trump and portrayed him as a president who was ill-informed about geopolitics.<\/p>\n The White House filed a lawsuit to block the book from being published, arguing it contained classified information and had not been properly vetted. A judge denied the request<\/a> and the book was released days later.<\/p>\n The US Department of Justice then opened an investigation into whether Bolton had mishandled classified information by disclosing certain information in the book. <\/p>\n Asked about the indictment on Thursday at the White House, Trump said he did not know about it, but added that Bolton was “a bad guy”. <\/p>\n Watch: How the FBI raids on John Bolton’s home and office unfolded<\/p>\n Bolton, who served as George W Bush’s UN ambassador, was among former officials critical of Trump who had their Secret Service protection stripped in January.<\/p>\n He is the third Trump critic to be criminally charged since September. <\/p>\n