Former national security adviser John Bolton’s indictment shows he is charged with 18 criminal counts, including eight counts of transmitting national defense information and 10 counts of retaining national defense information.
The indictment also claims that after Bolton was hacked by a “cyber actor” linked to Iran, he failed to reveal what kinds of classified information he had been sending through the hacked account.
The indictment alleges that “from on or about April 9, 2018, through at least on or about August 22, 2025, BOLTON abused his position as National Security Advisor 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 unauthorized individuals, namely Individuals 1 and 2.”
The indictment said the former adviser to President Donald Trump during Trump’s first term “also unlawfully retained documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense, including information classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level, in his home in Montgomery County, Maryland.”
🚨 BREAKING: “John Bolton was just indicted by a grand jury. Do you have a reaction to that?”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “I didn’t know that. You’re telling me for the first time! I think he’s a bad person. Too bad.”
“That’s the WAY IT GOES, RIGHT?” 😂
“He’s a BAD person.” 🔥 pic.twitter.com/QDH4TPFttA
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 16, 2025
The indictment said that from “on or about April 9, 2018, through on or about September 15, 2019, on a regular basis, Bolton sent diary-like entries to Individuals 1 and 2 that contained information classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level,” adding that these were sent “through a commercial non-governmental messaging application.
“On other occasions, Bolton used his personal non-governmental email accounts, such as email accounts hosted by AOL and Google, to email information classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level to Individuals 1 and/or 2 at their personal email accounts,” the indictment said.
The indictment noted Bolton failed to tell the truth when he was hacked by “a cyber actor believed to be associated with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The hacker “gained unauthorized access to the classified and national defense information in that account, which Bolton had previously emailed to Individuals 1 and 2.”
The indictment said Bolton’s representative “did not tell the U.S. Government that the account contained national defense information, including classified information, that Bolton had placed in the account from his time as National Security Advisor.”
“At no point did Bolton tell the FBI that, while he was the National Security Advisor, he had used the hacked email account to send Individuals 1 and 2 documents relating to the national defense, including classified information. Nor did he tell the FBI that the hackers now had this information,” the indictment said.
The indictment offered a summary of documents Bolton sent to individuals who were not authorized to receive them, all of which, as the indictment said, were read by a hacker linked to Iran.
One document “reveals intelligence about future attack by adversarial group in another country,” while another “reveals liaison partner sharing sensitive information with the U.S. intelligence community.”
In January 2019, the indictment said, Bolton sent to his partners a document that “[Revealed] intelligence that a foreign adversary was planning a missile launch in the future; a covert action in a foreign country that is related to sensitive inter-governmental actions; sensitive sources and methods used to collect human intelligence.
A June 2019 document Bolton sent “reveals intelligence about an adversary’s knowledge of planned U.S. actions; intelligence about adversary’s plans for attack conducted against U.S. Forces in another country; human intelligence using sensitive sources and methods; a covert action program; intelligence collected on the leader of an adversary nation’s military group,” the indictment said.
A July 2019 document Bolton sent “reveals intelligence on an adversarv’s leaders,” the indictment said, while an August one “reveals intelligence concerning a foreign country’s interactions with an adversary; in quotation marks direct statement collected via intelligence sources and methods on a foreign country; foreign country’s intelligence describing an adversary’s planned attack on a facility; sensitive sources and methods used to collect intelligence on a foreign country; a covert action and sources and methods used.”
One September document reveals “covert action planned by the U.S. Government; intelligence confirming a foreign adversary was responsible for an attack,” the indictment said, while another “reveals a covert action conducted by the U.S. Government, a liaison partner country, and specific information about the action,” the indictment said.
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