Washington —John Bolton, who served as national security adviser to President Trump in his first term, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified information shared with two relatives in diary-like entries across a seven-year span, the Associated Press reported.
Bolton appeared at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he was expected to be processed in the criminal case and made an initial appearance before a judge after a federal grand jury handed up an 18-count indictment against him Thursday.
Bolton, who has held a variety of senior positions within the U.S. government since the 1980s, is the third prominent critic of Mr. Trump’s to face criminal charges in recent weeks. Grand juries in Alexandria, Virginia, indicted former FBI director James Comey late last month for allegedly lying to Congress, and New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged bank fraud. Comey pleaded not guilty to the two charges brought against him, and James has called the claims against her “baseless.”
Prosecutors allege that from 2018 to August of this year, Bolton shared with two unnamed relatives more than 1,000 pages of information about his day-to-day activities while serving as national security adviser to Mr. Trump, some of which was was classified. The indictment also claims that Bolton kept documents, writings and notes related to the national defense, including information that was classified, in his home in Montgomery County, Maryland.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
