Ex-Trump adviser John Bolton pleads not guilty to sharing classified information | John Bolton

John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser during his first term, denied accusations on Friday that he shared diary-like notes containing top-secret information with relatives and stored classified documents at his home.

Bolton did not comment to reporters as he entered the courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he surrendered to authorities and appeared before U.S. magistrate judge Timothy Sullivan on the 18-count indictment against him.

Bolton has previously characterized the lawsuit as Trump’s latest effort to target his political enemies, and his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has portrayed the affair as an attempt to punish his client for taking notes for his 2020 behind-the-scenes memoir The Room Where it Happened, which criticized Trump and angered the administration.

“I have now become the latest target of weaponizing those the Justice Department considers its enemies to indict on previously dismissed charges or to distort the facts,” Bolton said in a statement.

But even though Bolton left Trump as national security adviser amid acrimonious relations, the indictment was filed by career prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland and described how Bolton sent notes about his daily activities through personal email accounts.

The indictment also revealed how Bolton’s email accounts were hacked by a foreign state actor believed to be Iran, who gained access to the notes after leaving government service and then printed the notes and stored them in his home along with documents marked confidential.

The justice department is pursuing Espionage Act cases in cases of so-called “additive factors”: intentional misuse of classified information, large amounts of classified information to support an inference of wrongdoing, disloyalty to the United States, and obstruction.

“Bolton took detailed notes documenting his daily meetings, events, and briefings. Bolton frequently hand-wrote these notes on yellow legal pads throughout the day at the White House complex or other secure locations and later retyped his notes in a word processing document,” the indictment said.

The indictment also stated that while Bolton was national security adviser, he used a group chat to send notes and documents containing top-secret information to two unnamed people who did not have a security clearance and were believed to be his wife and daughter.

Shortly before Bolton’s book was published, the previous Trump administration sued to delay its publication, citing classification review. The justice department also opened a criminal investigation into whether Bolton mishandled classified information by revealing some details in the book.

The Biden justice department first dropped the case and grand jury investigation in 2021. The U.S. intelligence community reopened the investigation after learning more about Bolton’s emails through a foreign spy service, according to people familiar with the matter.

Earlier this year, CIA director John Ratcliffe spoke with FBI director Kash Patel about Bolton’s emails and how they appeared to be copies of classified materials. The briefing increased interest in Bolton’s investigation, people familiar with the matter said.