Federal prosecutors meeting this weekend to finalize potential Bolton indictment

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) — Federal prosecutors are meeting on Saturday to finalize the details of a potential indictment against former national security adviser John Bolton, who has been under criminal investigation for years related to his handling of national security information, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Prosecutors in the Maryland US Attorney’s Office previously pushed back against Justice Department political leadership from the Deputy Attorney General’s Office who wanted Bolton to be charged late last month, CNN previously reported. The prosecutors had sought more time to firm up a case by the end of the year.

But as of Saturday, the Maryland-based team has lifted their objections and are working on the charges this weekend, the source told CNN Saturday.

The Justice Department has also had internal discussions over whether Bolton, a well-known critic of Trump, would be “perp walked,” or arrested in a way where he could be seen on cameras, the source said.

The meeting comes seven weeks after federal agents removed documents and electronics from Bolton’s home and office in court-approved searches.

The inquiry around Bolton’s handling of national defense records has existed for years, even predating President Donald Trump’s second term in the presidency. But the charges, if filed, would come amid a spate of indictments of government officials who Trump perceives as enemies and has publicly said he would like to see in court.

A spokesperson for Bolton declined to comment. Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Bolton, has maintained he did nothing inappropriate with classified records, and said records with classified markings found in his possession during the recent searches were decades old.

A Justice Department spokesman also declined to comment on Saturday.

Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser in his first term, but the president fired him in 2019 and the two have been sharply at odds ever since. Trump during his first term called for Bolton to be punished after the longtime national security expert released a politically damaging book in 2020 about Trump’s handling of foreign policy and foreign leaders.

The searches this year related to, in part, a reopened, years-old investigation involving Bolton’s book manuscript, which federal officials at first told him contained classified information. Yet investigators are also exploring other possible leaks.

Federal investigators seized multiple documents labeled “secret,” “confidential,” and “classified,” including some about weapons of mass destruction, during the late August search of Bolton’s office, now-public court records regarding the search say. The federal agents also took four computers and a USB flash drive from Bolton’s office, as well as a collection of drives, phones, computers and documents labeled as referring to “allied strikes” and “Trump I-IV” from his Bethesda, Maryland, house, which the FBI searched on the same day.

Bolton, 76, has maintained a private office since 2014 for political and policy work, according to public filings.

Some of the reasons for the searches relate to what federal authorities know about a foreign adversary hacking Bolton’s email years ago, according to the court record.

Trump’s Justice Department has been aggressive in its charging decisions lately – with a handpicked, inexperienced, newly appointed US attorney in Northern Virginia securing indictments of Trump foes James Comey, the former FBI director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, in the past three weeks.

The Bolton case is viewed by prosecutors within the Justice Department as different than the Comey and James cases, which have faced more internal pushback, multiple sources tell CNN.

The Bolton investigators this August, for instance, convinced federal judges in Maryland and Washington, DC, that they had collected enough evidence to search Bolton’s home and workspace, with the belief that those searches would turn up records that could become evidence of a crime in the investigation.

When asked about the Bolton investigation recently, Trump has said he didn’t want to know about Justice Department decision making. He didn’t mention Bolton, either, in a recent social media post directed at Attorney General Pam Bondi pushing for her to charge Comey, James and a Democratic senator.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to lying charges he faces related to past congressional testimony. James has not yet formally entered a plea to charges of misleading banks on mortgage documents, but has said she is unfairly being prosecuted by Trump’s Justice Department because of his political vendetta.

Bolton hasn’t been charged with any crime. He and James share a criminal defense attorney.

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