Why the case against John Bolton is not like others against Trump critics

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to see his critics investigated, putting pressure on the Justice Department to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” the president wrote last month in a Truth Social post.

“They charged me twice and charged me (5 times!),” he said, referring to the four criminal cases he’s faced since leaving the White House in 2021 and James’ civil case.

Both have since been charged in cases that many experts say appear politically motivated and difficult to win in court.

But the latest charges against a Trump critic, former national security adviser John Bolton, stand apart, legal experts and former prosecutors say.

“I would say that comparing Bolton’s allegations to those of Comey and James is like comparing apples to oranges,” said Mark Lesko, a former acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Bolton has been indicted on federal charges related to the alleged misuse of classified information. Since leaving the White House in 2019, he has become a fierce critic of Trump, going so far as to call him “stunningly uninformed” and unfit for office in his memoir.

Experts say that while there are political reasons to prosecute Bolton, the procedures used to secure an indictment and the evidence gathered against him show a potentially stronger case than the one the Justice Department made against Comey or James.

“This alleged violation is both more serious and appears to have occurred over a significant period of time,” said Carissa Byrne Hessick, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

During his time as Trump’s national security adviser and after he left the White House in 2019, prosecutors alleged that Bolton put the country at risk by improperly storing and transmitting classified information to family members using unsecured means, including AOL. Some of the documents were marked “top secret”.

The indictment alleges that at one point a hacker gained access to Bolton’s account, where documents were stored, and sent an apparent threat to cause “the biggest scandal since Hillary (Clinton’s) emails were leaked.”

Bolton pleaded not guilty during his court appearance Friday to 18 separate charges of mishandling classified information.

The timing of his indictment — following the indictments of Comey and James — has renewed questions about political pressure on the justice system.

Trump once hinted that Bolton was in jail and called him a “scumbag.” Bolton, in turn, wrote a book about his time in the Trump administration that was highly critical of the president.

“There’s no question that the timing of this indictment, combined with others, has raised questions about the strength of these indictments and why these indictments are being brought now,” said Jameel Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.

However, he added, “if the Department of Justice can prove the alleged facts and show that the information was properly classified, his conduct may very well have violated the law.”

Accusing such a high-ranking official of mishandling classified documents is “rare” but not unprecedented, said Carrie Cordero, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

“Cases that involve classified information are challenging to prosecute, but they can and are brought against both low-level and high-level officials from time to time,” she said.

Similarly, Trump faced charges of improperly storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and obstructing their return, but that case was ultimately dismissed by a federal judge and ruled out of his re-election bid.

A special prosecutor also found that former President Joe Biden improperly stored classified documents from his time as vice president, but did not charge him criminally.

Bolton’s case has similarities to the Trump and Biden classified documents issues, said Mr. Lesko, who also held a senior national security role at the Justice Department.

Strict procedures govern the handling of classified documents. To win a conviction, the government must prove that Bolton knew the information he was passing on was classified and should have knowingly passed it on to someone who was not entitled to receive it.

“Because of the classified nature of the material in question in this case, we don’t have a lot of detail about why the government believed things like the log entries and other information that he communicated via email and why they were classified,” Mr. Jaffer said.

The process by which the Justice Department brought this case will come under scrutiny after Trump has publicly stated his desire to see his political opponents prosecuted, and some of those charges have come true.

But Mr. Lesko said that in Bolton’s case prosecutors appeared to have followed protocol.

“Bolton’s prosecution and ultimately the indictment appear to have followed due process, including the rules and regulations within the Department of Justice,” he said.

Unlike Comey’s brief two-page indictment, Bolton’s was a more “traditional” document that “clearly lays out the details involving the facts and circumstances here,” Mr. Lesko said.

“It seems pretty consistent with a long line of cases … where government officials have mishandled and passed on classified material.”