John Bolton has just been indicted by a federal grand jury for both retaining and transmitting classified material.
The indictment is still sealed, but the AP reported that it has 18 counts.
Here’s more from Newsmax:
In an escalation of tensions between President Donald Trump and one of his most prominent internal critics, a federal grand jury in Maryland has returned an indictment against John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. The development was first reported Thursday by CNN, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
The indictment accuses Bolton of mishandling classified information, part of a broader Justice Department inquiry into whether he retained or transmitted secret or national defense information after leaving government. The case is being handled by career prosecutors in Maryland, rather than prosecutors in politically sensitive districts.
While the full indictment has not yet been unsealed, multiple media outlets — including Reuters and the Associated Press — report that the charges are tied to the federal investigation sparked by FBI searches of Bolton’s Maryland home and his Washington, D.C., office in August.
According to publicly available court filings and the inventory of seized material, investigators recovered documents marked “secret,” “confidential,” and “classified,” including items related to weapons of mass destruction, strategic communications, and U.S. interests at the United Nations.
The affidavit supporting the search warrants references alleged retention of national defense information and probable cause to believe Bolton may have been in unlawful possession of materials that should have been turned over to government archives.
One redacted portion of the affidavit suggests that Bolton’s personal AOL email account had been hacked by a foreign entity, and that the government recovered emails from that account that raised questions about whether he had transmitted classified materials through it.
Media outlets report that the allegedly illicit conduct spans multiple counts — potentially unauthorized retention of national defense information, improper transmission of classified records, and false statements to federal investigators.
Sounds like he’s in real deep on this one. Whoo boy.