Bolton pleads not guilty in Justice Department case accusing him of sharing government secrets

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — John Bolton pleaded not guilty Friday to charges accusing the former President Donald Trump national security adviser turned critic of emailing classified information to family members and keeping top secret documents at his Maryland home.

Bolton was ordered released from custody after making his appearance before a judge in the third Justice Department case brought in recent weeks against an adversary of the Republican president.

The case accusing Bolton of putting the country’s national security at risk is unfolding against the backdrop of growing concerns that the Trump administration is using the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to pursue his political foes. Bolton has signaled he will argue he is being targeted because of his criticism of the president, describing the charges as part of a Trump “effort to intimidate his opponents.”

The investigation into Bolton, however, was already well underway by the time Trump took office a second time this past January and appears to have followed a more conventional path toward indictment than other recent cases against perceived Trump foes, who were charged by the president’s hand-picked U.S. attorney in Virginia over the concerns of career prosecutors.

Bolton is accused of sharing with his wife and daughter more than 1,000 pages of notes that included sensitive information he had gleaned from meetings with other U.S. government officials and foreign leaders or from intelligence briefings. Authorities say some of the information was exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian government hacked Bolton’s email account he used to send the diary-like notes about his activities to his relatives.

The Justice Department also alleges Bolton stored at his home highly classified intelligence about a foreign adversary’s plans to attack U.S. forces overseas, covert action taken by the U.S. government and other state secrets.

“There is one tier of justice for all Americans,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Thursday. “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law.”