The John Bolton Indictment

John Bolton, President Trump’s former National Security Advisor (NSA), has been indicted by a grand jury for the District of Maryland. Here is the indictment.

In total, Bolton faces 18 felony counts: 8 counts of transmission of national defense information (18 USC § 793(d)) and 10 counts of retention of national defense information (18 USC § 793(e)) – charges that fall under the Espionage Act.

Bolton served as President Trump’s NSA from April 9, 2018 to September 10, 2019. His term was fairly short-lived, as Trump and Bolton didn’t agree on many matters, with Bolton advocating harder lines as opposed to the naturally deal-making Trump.

What the public didn’t know – until this afternoon’s release of the indictment – was that during his time as NSA, Bolton abused his position “by sharing more than a thousand pages of information about 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 level – with two individuals.”

Those individuals are identified as “Individual 1” and “Individual 2” in the indictment. In one message, Bolton referred to them as his “editors.” MSNBC, which would most certainly have the ability to contact Bolton directly, is reporting that they are his wife and daughter.

It’s curious that Bolton would refer to his wife and daughter as his “editors.” There is little doubt that they helped Bolton put together, or at least compile his notes, for his memoir The Room Where It Happened, which was released in June 2020 and was exceptionally critical of Trump. And the messages from his wife/daughter seem to confirm as much, as they commented on their edits and their review of the documents.