A grand jury has indicted Donald Trump’s former national security adviser turned prominent critic John Bolton, marking yet another criminal prosecution of the president’s perceived political enemies.
The 18-count indictment alleged Bolton sent hundreds of pages of classified material with members of his family, including foreign intelligence and covert actions from the U.S. government and other documents labeled “top secret.”
Bolton — whose home in Bethesda, Maryland, was raided by the FBI in August — is accused of sharing more than 1,000 pages of classified materials with his wife and daughter over email from 2018 through 2025, according to Thursday’s indictment.
He is also accused of sending “diary-like entries” to his wife and daughter — identified only as “individuals 1 and 2” — that he transcribed from hand-written notes containing classified material, the document says.
Agents had also searched Bolton’s office in Washington, D.C., and allegedly seized records with classification markings, including documents that referenced weapons of mass destruction and government communications, according to court documents.
The indictment marks the third case in as many weeks against a prominent Trump critic, after the president publicly instructed the Department of Justice and Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin politically motivated criminal prosecutions against his enemies. “We can’t delay,” Trump wrote last month.
After leaving the first Trump administration, from which the president claims Bolton was fired, Bolton published the 2020 book The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir, a scathing account of the first days of Trump’s presidency. During his second presidential campaign, Bolton accused Trump of being “unfit” for office.
This is a developing story
