The Justice Department is expected to ask the president’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The possible indictment comes two months after his agents discovered documents marked “confidential” in Bolton’s Washington office that referenced weapons of mass destruction, according to court documents.
Series of prosecutions against political opponents and critics of Trump
If Bolton is ultimately indicted, it would be the third time in recent weeks that the Justice Department has pushed for criminal charges against critics or opponents of Donald Trump. If they do, it will come shortly after the Justice Department indicted FBI Director James Comey, who investigated Trump’s 2016 campaign, and New York Attorney General Leticia James, who previously prosecuted Trump and his family’s real estate firm for fraud.
Bolton’s lawyer, Abe Lowell, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters, but Lowell has previously denied that Bolton was involved in wrongdoing and has said that the files seized by the FBI were ordinary documents a former government official might possess.
Bolton served as the US ambassador to the United Nations as well as a White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term before emerging as one of his chief critics. In his memoirs, he called Trump unfit to be president.
Officials of the ministry were pushing for the speeding up of prosecutions
According to various reports, officials at the US Department of Justice have long been pushing for immediate charges against Bolton, although some Maryland prosecutors expressed concern about such an ouster. Accordingly, lawyers from the Directorate of National Security argued that more investigation was needed and that the case was being rushed.
FBI agents searched Bolton’s home and office in August, looking for evidence of possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to remove, retain or transmit national defense records, according to partially unsealed search warrants filed in federal court.
