UPDATED: John Bolton, who served as national secutiry adviser to Donald Trump in his first term, has been indicted by a grand jury in Maryland.
Bolton was indicted Thursday on eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.
Bolton allegedly used personal email and messaging application accounts to send sensitive documents “classified as high as Top Secret,” the Justice Department said in a statement, and that he retained the documents at his home. FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the “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.”
Each count faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
As news spread of the indictment, a reporter asked Trump about it.
“I didn’t know that. You are telling me for the first time, but I think he’s a bad person. I think he’s a bad guy.”
In a statement to CNN, Bolton said, “For four decades, I have devoted my life to America’s foreign policy and national security. I would never compromise those goals. I tried to do that during my tenure in the first Trump Administration but resigned when it became impossible to do so. Donald Trump’s retribution against me began then, 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. 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.”
In the first reaction to his indictment, John Bolton says:
“For four decades, I have devoted my life to America’s foreign policy and national security. I would never compromise those goals. I tried to do that during my tenure in the first Trump Administration but resigned when…
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 16, 2025
CNN previously reported that the DOJ investigation had to do with notes that Bolton had been making in an AOL email account when he was working for Trump.
Agents searched Bolton’s home last summer. Back then, the reports were that he was under investigation for the unlawful handling of classified information.
Bolton has become a frequent media presence since Trump’s first term, appearing on cable news to give his take on foreign affairs and Trump’s handling of foreign policy. He was particularly critical of Trump’s decision to meet with Vladimir Putin in Alaska last summer, an event in which the red carpet was rolled out for the Russian leader. Bolton appeared on NewsNation this week.
On X, he also was critical of new restrictions placed on reporters covering the Pentagon. That has led to an exodus of all mainstream news outlets from the complex, with reporters turning in their press badges.
Bolton wrote, “Hegseth’s 17 pages of new rules for media in the Pentagon are a mistake and upend over 80 years of American norms. The wide range of outlets refusing these rules — from the Washington Post to Newsmax and The Hill — show how indefensible these new rules are.”
Unlike New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, two Trump critics indicted within the last month, Bolton was in the White House with Trump. On MSNBC, Andrew Weissmann, lead prosecutor in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian collusion, said that by targeting former administration officials, the DOJ is saying, “Do not speak ill of Donald Trump. Do not go out and say anything that is derogatory, particularly if you were on the inside. You must be loyal.”
On Wednesday, the president called for an investigation of Weissmann and of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who indicted Trump on charges of withholding classified information after he left the White House, and on charges of conspiring to remain in the White House after losing the election in 2020. Weissmann had interviewed Smith in a recent public appearance.
But Weissmann and other commentators cautioned that the charges against Bolton may be more serious than those of the other Trump foes, as it involves the transmission of classified information. Some Trump critics, like attorney George Conway, said that the case against Bolton was “real and substantial,” unlike the James and Comey charges.
“We’ll have to see the actual evidence before we can assess how it may come out,” Conway wrote on X.
In 2020, after Bolton left the Trump administration and published his book The Room Where It Happened, the Justice Department sued over its publication. Federal officials claimed that Bolton failed to complete a review process to edit out classified information. But the DOJ dropped the lawsuit the following year, and Bolton’s attorney, Charles Cooper, said that criminal grand jury proceedings also were ended.
