John Bolton expected to be indicted this week over handling of classified documents

Just two months ago, federal investigators raided Bolton’s home in Maryland and his Washington, DC office as part of an ongoing probe into his alleged removal of “highly sensitive national security” materials. According to a report by the New York Post, Department of Justice officials expect an indictment to be handed down on Wednesday or Thursday, with one official telling the outlet the case against Bolton is “airtight.”

Investigators allege that Bolton used a private email account to take and store sensitive information and to record notes about his activities while serving in the Trump administration.

Bolton’s actions were first detected in 2020 through a “very specific intelligence capacity” that revealed he had “transferred” classified documents from his White House office to his home prior to his dismissal by President Trump in September 2019, senior FBI sources told The New York Post. Officials opened the investigation, which is separate from the inquiry into whether Bolton included classified material in his 2020 memoir “The Room Where It Happened,” in 2020 during the Trump administration, but it was later “shelved” under former President Biden.

Last week, Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that he had handled records properly.

“An objective and thorough review will show nothing inappropriate was stored or kept by Amb. Bolton. These materials, many of which are documents that had been approved as part of a pre-publication review for Amb. Bolton’s book, were reviewed and closed years ago,” Lowell said, according to NBC News. “These are the kinds of ordinary records, many of which are 20 years old or more, that would be kept by a longtime career official who served at the State Department, as an Assistant Attorney General, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and the National Security Advisor.”