Grand Jury Is Said Close to Indicting John Bolton, Possibly as Early as Next Week

The former national security adviser to President Trump, John Bolton, is reportedly facing an imminent criminal indictment.The charges, which could be announced as early as next week, are expected to relate to the alleged mishandling of classified national security information, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with MSNBC. A grand jury in Maryland has been reviewing evidence for several weeks regarding claims that Mr. Bolton improperly possessed classified documents at his home, which was raided by the FBI in August. Two anonymous sources told MSNBC that the investigation’s pace has recently intensified.If indicted, Mr. Bolton would be the third prominent critic of the president to face criminal charges in recent weeks, following indictments against a former FBI director, James Comey, and Attorney General Letitia James of New York.The relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolton soured after Mr. Bolton was fired from his post, and he has since become a vocal opponent of Mr. Trump’s leadership.While career prosecutors in Virginia and New York were reportedly hesitant to pursue cases against Mr. Comey and Ms. James, Maryland prosecutors seem confident in the evidence against Mr. Bolton. According to the sources, the acting U.S. Attorney for Maryland, Kelly Hayes, believes there is sufficient grounds to charge the former ambassador.The investigation escalated on August 22 when the FBI executed a search warrant at Mr. Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, residence and his Washington, D.C., office. The raid, authorized by a federal judge based on a warrant from the CIA, aimed to locate classified records. The event was publicly celebrated on social media by the FBI director, Kash Patel, who posted on X: “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.”Mr. Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, has consistently asserted his client’s innocence. Mr. Lowell said that any classified documents in Mr. Bolton’s possession were from his time as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration and were typical for a long-serving government official to retain.“An objective and thorough review will show nothing inappropriate was stored or kept by Ambassador Bolton,” Mr. Lowell said in a statement in September.He said “the materials taken included documents that had previously been approved as part of a pre-publication review for Ambassador Bolton’s book and are the kinds of records that would be kept by a 40-year career serving at the State Department, as an Assistant Attorney General, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, and National Security Advisor.”Further details emerged with the unsealing of a heavily redacted probable-cause affidavit used to justify the raid. A section titled “Hack of Bolton’s AOL Account by Foreign Entity” was entirely blacked out.A source familiar with the investigation told CNN that the American intelligence community believes Mr. Bolton’s emails showed signs of having been intercepted by China, Russia, or Iran, with Iran considered the top suspect.The affidavit also details interactions between Mr. Bolton and a senior National Security Council official, Ellen Knight, who reviewed the manuscript for his 2020 book, “The Room Where It Happened.”Ms. Knight reportedly found “significant amounts” of classified information, some at the top-secret level, and noted that Mr. Bolton “appeared to acknowledge” the need to remove it. These discussions appear to be a core part of the investigation before a federal grand jury.

Grand Jury Is Said Close to Indicting John Bolton, Possibly as Early as Next Week

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