Former National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks to reporters after speaking in a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran – U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on Aug. 17, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
John Bolton, a former national advisor to President Donald Trump, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Maryland.
Bolton, 76, is charged in a 26-page indictment with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement, “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 the statement to NBC News.
“Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries – that is not a crime. We look forward to proving once again that Amb. Bolton did not unlawfully share or store any information,” Lowell said.
Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from April 2018 through September 2019, only to become a leading critic of him, is the third high-profile Trump foe to be criminally charged in recent weeks after being criticized by the president.
The 26-page indictment says that Bolton, from April 2018 through this past August, shared “more than a thousand pages of 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 [sensitive compartmented information] level-with two unauthorized individuals” who were relatives of his.
Neither of those two people had security clearances, the indictment says.
“Bolton 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 indictment said.
Bolton is accused of electronically sending, through non-governmental messaging applications, “diary-like entries” to the two other people that contained information classified as top secret.
FBI agents carry boxes as they exit the building that houses the Washington office of former National Security Adviser John Bolton, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 22, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz | Reuters
The indictment says that at some point between September 2019 and July 2021, a cyber hacker believed to be associated with Iran “hacked Bolton’s personal email account and gained unauthorized access to the classified and national defense information in that account, which Bolton had previously emailed to Individuals 1 and 2 while he was the National Security Advisor.”
The charges against Bolton, who, like Trump, is a Republican, were unsealed shortly after the indictment was handed to a magistrate judge in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison on each individual count if convicted, although federal sentencing guidelines would recommend a much less-severe punishment.
Grand juries in Virginia recently separately indicted former FBI Director James Comey on charges related to allegedly lying to Congress, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is accused of bank fraud related to a mortgage on a home she owns in Virginia.
They have denied any wrongdoing in those cases.
“There is one tier of justice for all Americans,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement on Bolton’s indictment. “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law.”
Trump was asked about the Bolton indictment by a reporter at the White House.
“I didn’t know that,” Trump said.
“You’re telling me for the first time, but I think he’s … a bad person,” Trump said. “Yeah, he’s a bad guy. It’s too bad. But that’s the way it goes right? That’s the way it goes.”
FBI agents on Aug. 22 raided Bolton’s Maryland home and office in Washington, D.C.
The raids are part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records,” a person familiar with the matter told NBC at the time.