Iraq war criminal and scumbag John Bolton has been indicted by a US court. But not for the reasons you might hope for.
John Bolton: indicted, but for what?
According to a 26-page indictment filed at a court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday, Bolton is charged with eight counts of transmission of national defence information (NDI) and 10 counts of unlawful retention of NDI”
Prosecutors accuse him of illegally transmitting top secret information about US national defence using his personal email and other messaging apps.
Trump’s purge of rivals?
John Bolton denies the charges. He served as a top-level security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term. He was fired in 2019.
The unauthorised information includes “diary-like entries from Bolton’s time as the National Security Advisor” and were allegedly “printed and stored” at Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Maryland.
Allegedly, these messages went to his wife and daughter. He is the third of Trump’s political opponents to be indicted recently, the BBC claims.
If found guilty he could face 10 years in jail.
Bolton said:
Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he [Trump] deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts.
Dubious record
John Bolton is a man who has relished his proximity to power for decades. He was a key architect of the Iraq War. He was once absolutely destroyed by the late Labour MP Tony Benn in a televised debate on the matter:
Bolton has also called for high-profile leakers to be executed in the past. This included Iraq war hero Chelsea Manning:
Here's John Bolton calling for Chelsea Manning's execution over disclosing classified info to WikiLeaks pic.twitter.com/2YV0M29y0w
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) October 16, 2025
Ex-intelligence contractor Edward Snowden exposed US and other mass surveillance programs to the world. John Bolton also called for his death:
I'm old enough to remember when John Bolton said Snowden should be hanged and Assange should get 176 years in prison for leaking classified documents. pic.twitter.com/sTLim9D9JB
— Sean M. Campbell (@campbellmsean) October 17, 2025
All in all, what goes around comes around. And if you have a boss as fickle and egotistical as Donald Trump, you’d be make damned sure you don’t get on his wrong side. Not that anyone – for example, the families of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who perished – will shed a tears for John Bolton.
Featured image via the Canary
By Joe Glenton
This post was originally published on Canary.