Donald Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of emailing classified information to family members and keeping top secret documents at his Maryland home.
Mr Bolton was ordered to be released from custody after making his appearance before a judge in the third Justice Department case brought in recent weeks against an adversary of the Republican president.
The case accusing Mr Bolton of putting the country's national security at risk is unfolding against the backdrop of growing concerns that the Trump administration is using the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to pursue his political foes.
Mr Bolton has signalled he will argue he is being targeted because of his criticism of the president, describing the charges as part of a Trump "effort to intimidate his opponents".
The investigation, however, began under the Biden administration and appears to have followed a more conventional path toward indictment than other recent cases against perceived Trump enemies, who were charged by Mr Trump's hand-picked US attorney in Virginia over the concerns of career prosecutors.
Mr Bolton is accused of sharing with his wife and daughter more than 1,000 pages of notes including sensitive information he gleaned from meetings with other US government officials and foreign leaders or from intelligence briefings.
Hacked email allegation
Authorities say some of the information had been exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian government hacked the email account he used to send the diary-like notes about his activities to his relatives.
The Justice Department also alleges he stored at his home highly classified intelligence about a foreign adversary's plans to attack US forces overseas, covert action taken by the US government and other state secrets.
"There is one tier of justice for all Americans," US Attorney-General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Thursday.
"Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardies our national security will be held accountable. No-one is above the law."
Mr Bolton, 76, is a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles.
He became known for his hawkish views on American power and served for more than a year in Mr Trump's first administration before being fired in 2019.
He later published a book highly critical of Trump.
The indictment is significantly more detailed in its allegations than earlier cases against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney-General Letitia James.
And while those cases were filed by a hastily appointed US attorney, career national security prosecutors signed Mr Bolton's indictment.
Top-secret information at centre of case
Mr Bolton suggested the criminal case was an outgrowth of an unsuccessful Justice Department effort after he left government to block the publication of his 2020 book The Room Where It Happened, which portrayed Mr Trump as grossly misinformed about foreign policy.
His lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Mr Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer had classified information.
Authorities say he took meticulous notes about his meetings and briefings as national security adviser and then used a personal email account and messaging platform to share information classified as high as top secret with his family members.
After sending one document, Mr Bolton wrote in a message to his relatives, "none of which we talk about!!!" In response, one of his relatives wrote, "Shhhhh," prosecutors said.
The two family members were not identified in court papers.
A representative for Mr Bolton told the FBI in July 2021 that his email account was hacked by operatives, believed to be linked to the Iranian government, but did not reveal he had shared classified information through the account or that the hackers now had possession of government secrets, according to the indictment.
His attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the "underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago".
He said the charges stemmed from portions of Mr Bolton's personal diaries over his 45-year career in government and included unclassified information that was shared only with his immediate family and was known to the FBI as far back as 2021.
"Like many public officials throughout history, Bolton kept diaries. That is not a crime", Mr Lowell said, adding that his client "did not unlawfully share or store any information".
Long history of classified documents cases
The Justice Department has a history of investigations into the mishandling of classified information, including by public officials.
The outcomes of those investigations have turned in part on whether officials have developed evidence of wilful mishandling or other crimes such as obstruction.
Mr Trump, for instance, was charged not only with hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, but also with obstructing government efforts to get them back. The case was dismissed after he took office.
Prosecutors in a separate investigation found evidence that Mr Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, wilfully retained classified documents, but they opted against charging him in part because they thought Mr Biden might come across to a jury as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory".
Another high-profile investigation concerned 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was spared charges after then-FBI director James Comey said investigators did not determine that she intended to break the law when she sent emails with classified information on a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
AP/ABC
