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Ex-Trump national security adviser John Bolton indicted on charges of mishandling classified information

By Caitlin Doornbos, NY Post

Published Oct. 16, 2025

A federal grand jury indicted former Trump national security adviser John Bolton Thursday on 18 counts of illegally hoarding or sending sensitive information — leaving the longtime pillar of the Republican foreign policy establishment facing decades in prison.

The indictment in Greenbelt, Md., federal court alleges that Bolton transmitted classified national security documents through a personal AOL email account and knowingly sent secret materials to outside contacts while serving in the first Trump administration.

Prosecutors allege that Bolton, 76, used email and various messaging apps to send documents classified as high as “top secret” that revealed intelligence about future US attacks, foreign adversaries and international relations.

The former US ambassador to the United Nations also kept diary-like notes of his daily activities and assessments, more than 1,000 pages of which he shared with two relatives — believed to be his wife and daughter — who did not have security clearances and were not authorized to see the information Bolton shared.

In July 2021, the indictment claims, the information Bolton sent to his family was exposed when the AOL account was hacked by operatives linked to the Iranian government, which has targeted the former adviser for assassination since the death of high-ranking Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike in January 2020.

An unidentified Bolton representative told the FBI his emails had been hacked, prosecutors say, but did not reveal that he had shared classified information through the AOL account or that the hackers now had possession of this information.

Bolton served as President Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 until his firing in September 2019. Upon leaving office, he pledged that he did not have any classified documents or notes in his possession.

Bolton faces up to 10 years in prison on each count of the indictment.

When asked about the indictment of Bolton in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon, Trump responded that he had no advance knowledge of the criminal charges.

“You are telling me for the first time,” the president said. “But I think he’s, you know, a bad person. I think he’s a bad guy. Yeah, he’s bad guy. Too bad — but that’s the way it goes. That’s the way it goes.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that Bolton’s indictment showed that “there is one tier of justice for all Americans.”

“Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable,” she said. “No one is above the law.”

“Weaponization of justice will not be tolerated, and this FBI will stop at nothing to bring to justice anyone who threatens our national security,” added FBI Director Kash Patel said in the joint statement with Bondi.

Federal agents searched Bolton’s Maryland home and Washington, DC, office on Aug. 22 in connection with the long-running investigation, which FBI sources told The Post was mysteriously “shelved” during the administration of Trump’s predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

During those searches, investigators retrieved documents related to weapons of mass destruction, the US mission to the United Nations, strategic government communications and secret travel memos, according to court records.

Even if Bolton had no intention of releasing the information, he could be held liable if sensitive documents were left lying around where others could get to it — a legal provision that applies to his personal email account as well.

Investigators were told to look for software or viruses that would allow an outsider access to Bolton’s electronics — as well as whether the former US ambassador to the United Nations had installed security software to detect malware, according to a search warrant.

It’s unclear whether any such programs were found.

The indictment of Bolton, who became a persistent Trump critic after leaving the administration, follows charges of perjury and obstruction of justice against former FBI Director James Comey and bank fraud against New York state Attorney General Letitia James. Both of those cases were filed in Virginia federal court.

In 2020, Bolton faced a separate investigation into his handling of classified information surrounding the publication of his White House memoir, “The Room Where it Happened.”

The Trump administration asserted that Bolton’s manuscript included classified information that could harm national security if exposed. Bolton’s lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer contained classified information.

A search warrant affidavit that was previously unsealed said a National Security Council official had reviewed the book manuscript and told Bolton in 2020 that it appeared to contain “significant amounts” of classified information, some at a top-secret level.

Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, has said that many of the documents seized in August had been approved as part of a pre-publication review for Bolton’s book. Lowell added that many were decades old and date from Bolton’s long career in the State Department, as an assistant attorney general and as UN ambassador.