John Bolton, former national security advisor to Donald Trump during his first term and turned into one of his most virulent critics, pleaded not guilty on Friday, October 17, to disclosure and retention of documents related to national defense.
John Bolton, 76, was indicted Thursday by a jury in Maryland, near Washington. He is the third person accused by the US president since his return to the White House in January.
“I have become the latest target of his use of the Ministry of Justice to persecute those he considers his enemies through accusations that were previously dismissed or that distort the facts,” he reacted on Thursday night after his accusation in a press release distributed by the media.
Released under conditions
John Bolton was released under conditions, including not to travel without judicial authorization, US media report. The judge set the next hearing for November 21.
In June 2020, John Bolton published a scathing book about his 17 months as national security adviser to Donald Trump, whom he described as “unfit” to lead the United States.
Donald Trump repeatedly expressed during the election campaign his desire, once back in power, to take revenge on all those whom he considers personal enemies.
John Bolton’s indictment follows that of former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
Share “documents about daily activities”
John Bolton is accused of having “abused his position as national security advisor by sharing more than a thousand pages of documents about his daily activities” in his functions with two people in his environment who did not have security clearance.
These two people, not identified in the indictment, are his wife and daughter, according to media reports.
According to the indictment, he allegedly transmitted this confidential information to them via his unsecured personal email.
As an aggravating factor, in July 2021, a representative of the former national security advisor informed the FBI that one of the email accounts he used had been hacked after his departure from the government by a hacker linked, according to him, to Iran, a country towards which John Bolton defended a hard line.
But “at no time” did he alert authorities to the fact that he had shared on this account “information relating to national defense, including classified information. Nor did he tell the FBI that hackers now had this information,” prosecutors emphasize.
Additionally, during a search of John Bolton’s home in August, the FBI discovered documents related to national defense, according to prosecutors.
The White House tried in vain to legally block the publication of John Bolton’s book in 2020, citing in particular national security imperatives.
The US president indicated on Wednesday that he hoped that federal prosecutors would also be interested in the case of several other personalities, including former special prosecutor Jack Smith, who had investigated the two federal criminal proceedings against him, abandoned after his election.
“What we are doing is really nothing” compared to the criminal proceedings that were directed against him during the government of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, Donald Trump assured, equating them once again to the persecution of a “political opponent.”
Source: BFM TV
