John Bolton

Jones: “I just went through some of the documents that he had. So, there was info on future attacks, foreign intel sharing. Adversary, covert action, sensitive human intel sources and covert operation and assessments. Just face value, you know, can you talk about political targeting and all of that, but that is damning evidence from the Bureau.” TURLEY: “It’s very damning. And we still have to learn about the timeline of when this information was transmitted, but certainly, this information is classified at the highest levels because this is information that’d get people killed. I mean, this is the type of information that, if it gets out, can reveal sources and methods that represent really threatening consequences for national security. And keep in mind that in an earlier case, a federal judge said that he could not force Bolton to bring back and destroy all of the books that he had published with this company, but he said, ‘You did undermine national security.’ This book does that. And so that’s sort of the context here. The other thing about this, Lawrence, is that this was a longstanding series of objections. He was investigated during the Biden Administration before that was scuttled. But he had basically defied a lot of the objections from the intelligence community. And now this indictment says that he was sending this information to what appears to be his wife and daughter, who, of course, have no clearances, and then it might have even been hacked by the Iranian government or its associates.” Jones: “I know it’s not necessary to prove intent, but it does make it more difficult for him that they warned him before he decided to do this. And, yet, he kind of scuffed at it and proceeded. I want to go to his comments back in January 2023. This is what he had to say about handling classified documents. Let’s watch it.” [Clip starts] BOLTON: “It sets a bad example for the thousands of other people in the federal bureaucracy who have security clearances. Because if the people at the top can be casual about it and then get away with it, that is not a good lesson to teach.” [Clip ends] Jones: “It’s like on those moments, the audacity for me. Like, how could you be so strong and then we find all this information?” TURLEY: “Well, you know, Lawrence, those clips, I can tell you as a criminal defense attorney, probably rule out his ever being put on the stand. Because while the court might not allow those to be admitted initially, they very well could be admitted to impeach him or rebut him. And I don’t think he can take the risk because he looks like an utter hypocrite. I mean, this indictment really shows a level of casual treatment of intelligence information. It’s quite shocking. He comes across like a teenager in a chat room. I mean, he’s sending this stuff by email after all the controversies that we have had for years about trying to secure this type of information. And, Lawrence, there is two arguments here that will not work. One is, well, this is just old classified material. That doesn’t fly. I mean, the question is, is it classified or not? That’s why jurors tend to view these as rather cut-and-dry questions. The other argument that sort of suggested by his counsel is, well, everyone does this, this is just keeping a diary. That’s not going to work either. You know, whether you transmit the document or the contents, it’s classified and it’s subject to these criminal laws.”

TAPPER: “Andy, sources told CNN prosecutors that Bolton shared this highly classified information with his wife and his daughter over email. In the indictment, it’s just referred to as Person 1 and Person 2 who are related to him, but we’ve been told it’s his wife and daughter. You held a leadership role in the FBI. You know how serious classified information is regarded, although there are also over-classification issues in the government. What’s your reaction to the indictment?” McCabe: “Yeah, Jake. So, the indictment is very serious and it stands out to me from the recent investigations that we have seen of the, you know, poor storage, unauthorized storage of classified information, most notably the investigation of Vice President Pence and investigation of Vice President Biden. In both of those cases, what prosecutors lacked was any indication, any evidence of intent to hold that material in an unauthorized place. And there’s a lot of circumstances that support those findings. In this case, the opposite seems to be true. At least the allegations are that Mr. Bolton was frequently taking, essentially, his summaries of his day’s work, much of which was classified material, and he, from his position, was certainly in a position to know that that, the substance of that material was classified, and sending it to Person 1 and Person 2 over unauthorized systems, open email systems like AOL and Google, things like that. So, that allegation alone imparts a great deal of intent. It’s going to be hard for Mr. Bolton to argue that those transmissions were inadvertent or that he didn’t know that he was mishandling classified or national defense information. So that alone elevates the seriousness of this case and the strength of the prosecution far beyond anything we’ve seen recently in the instances of Vice President Pence and President Biden.”

BREAKING: Trump calls him “a bad person” after reports that former national security adviser John Bolton was indicted in manhandling of classified information

Listen to Donald Trump speak about John Bolton on June 15th, 2020: "He went out and wrote a book. That's highly classified information... If he wrote a book and the book gets out, then he's broken the law. I would think that he would have criminal problems... Maybe he's not telling the truth... He knows and he was advised not to write it.. until it's cleared. He couldn't wait. And we'll see what happens. Personally, I would imagine, when you do classified that to me is a strong criminal problem. Any conversation with me is classified. It becomes even worse if he lies about that conversation." It looks like Bill Barr did not have the guts to prosecute Bolton for his actions, but it's a new administration. I imagine this is what they are looking to prosecute him for, but is there more to this raid than just on the surface? Will this lead to other damning information?