Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton transmitted classified emails over a private server system and they were intercepted by a hostile foreign country’s spy service, according to a leak to The New York Times.
As reported last week, John Bolton is reportedly under investigation for violating the Espionage Act, according to The New York Times.
“The investigation into whether John Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, mishandled classified information is trying to determine if he violated certain sections of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to illegally retain or transmit national defense information, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the case,” The New York Times reported.
The FBI raided the home of Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, last Friday morning.
FBI agents were sent to Bolton’s home because he allegedly sent “highly sensitive” classified materials to family members from a private, unsecured email server while he was working at the White House during the first Trump Administration.
“Investigators reopened a dormant probe into Bolton’s alleged use of a private email to send classified national security documents to his wife and daughter from his work desk before his dismissal by Trump in September 2019, according to a senior US official,” The New York Post reported last week.
The investigation into John Bolton began in 2020 when he used classified information to write his book titled, “The Room Where It Happened.”
The Biden Administration halted the investigation into Bolton, but FBI Director Kash Patel revived it and ordered the raid on the former NatSec Advisor’s home.
John Bolton has not been arrested or charged with any crimes (yet).
The New York Times on Wednesday reported that the US Government actually discovered John Bolton’s classified emails while gathering information from an “adversarial country’s spy service.”
The New York Times reported:
The investigation into President Trump’s former national security advisor, John R. Bolton, began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration, when U.S. intelligence officials collected information that appeared to show that he had mishandled classified information, according to people familiar with the inquiry.
The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.
The investigation of Mr. Bolton, who has become an ardent critic of the president, burst back into public view last week when federal agents searched his Maryland home and Washington office.
While those searches have raised fresh questions about the extent to which Mr. Trump may be using the Justice Department and F.B.I. to try to punish those he dislikes, the new details of the case present a more complex chain of events. The disclosures suggest that a long-running investigation into Mr. Bolton’s activities changed over time, with some of the issues echoing past inquiries into the handling of national security secrets.
The emails in question, according to the people, were sent by Mr. Bolton and included information that appeared to derive from classified documents he had seen while he was national security adviser Mr. Bolton apparently sent the messages to people close to him who were helping him gather material that he would ultimately use his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”
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