Washington [US], October 17 : John Bolton, US President Donald Trump's former national security adviser turned adversary, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland, CNN reported.
Bolton now faces 18 charges, including eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.
According to the indictment cited by CNN, during his tenure as national security adviser, Bolton shared "more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities" with two unauthorized individuals. Both recipients were family members and "didn't have the authority to access classified information," prosecutors said.
The indictment also revealed that print-outs of Bolton's "diary" entries were discovered at his home.
Bolton is expected to surrender to authorities at the federal court in Greenbelt as early as Friday. His case has been assigned to Judge Theodore D. Chuang, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2014.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement, "The FBI's 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. The case was based on meticulous work from dedicated career professionals at the FBI who followed the facts without fear or favor. Weaponization of justice will not be tolerated, and this FBI will stop at nothing to bring to justice anyone who threatens our national security."
CNN further reported that Bolton, already under scrutiny for allegedly mishandling classified material, becomes the third prominent Trump political adversary indicted within the last month.
Sources told CNN that Bolton allegedly shared sensitive information with his wife and daughter over email. Part of the Justice Department's probe, CNN noted, focused on notes Bolton kept in an AOL email account, summarizing his daily activities, effectively serving as diary entries, while he worked under Trump.
This summer, FBI agents executed a search warrant on Bolton's Maryland residence and Washington, DC, office. Court records show that the agents seized multiple documents labeled "secret," "confidential," and "classified," including some concerning weapons of mass destruction, CNN reported.
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