John Bolton pleaded not guilty Friday to charges accusing the former President Donald Trump national security adviser turned critic of emailing classified information to family members and keeping top secret documents at his Maryland home.
Bolton did not comment to reporters as he entered the courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he made his initial appearance before a judge on the 18-count indictment brought against him on Thursday.
It’s third criminal
case brought in recent weeks by the Justice Department against a Trump adversary, and is unfolding against the backdrop of growing concerns that the Republican president is using the law enforcement agency to seek retribution against his perceived enemies.
“Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts,” Bolton said in a statement after a grand jury returned the indictment on Thursday.
Bolton is accused sharing with his wife and daughter more than 1,000 pages of notes that included sensitive national defense information he had gleaned from meetings with other U.S. government officials and foreign leaders or from intelligence briefings.
The latest:
The U.S. has blocked a global fee on shipping emissions as an international maritime meeting ended Friday without adopting new regulations.
The world’s largest maritime nations had been discussing ways to move the shipping industry away from fossil fuels.
On Thursday, Trump urged countries to vote against the regulations. The International Maritime Organization adjourned its meeting Friday. The proposed regulations would have set a marine fuel standard and imposed fees for emissions above allowable limits. Shipping emissions have grown to about 3% of the global total, prompting calls for action.
President Donald Trump is set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at the White House on Friday. The U.S. leader is signaling he’s not ready to agree to sell Kyiv a long-range missile system that the Ukrainians say they desperately need.
The meeting comes a day after Trump had a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In recent days, Trump had shown openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Putin warned against it.
Following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles.
With a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas continuing to hold, Trump says he’s optimistic that more Middle East and Muslim countries will move to normalize relations with Israel.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco forged diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel through Trump’s first-term effort dubbed the Abraham Accords. Trump now wants to quickly build on that effort and believes that Saudi Arabia—the region’s biggest economic power—could now be amenable.
Trump in an interview with Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures added that Israel and U.S. strikes earlier this year that set back Iran’s nuclear program could also inform Riyadh’s calculations about joining the accords.
“I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in,” Trump said. “I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, along with Sens. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, and Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, will again test Senate Republicans’ willingness to put a check on President Donald Trump’s war powers, this time with a resolution that would prevent Trump from attacking Venezuela without congressional authorization.
Kaine argues that the U.S. is engaged in hostilities with Venezuela and that the War Powers Resolution ”was designed specifically to enable Congress to try to stop a war.”
The senators can force a Senate vote on the resolution in the coming weeks. It’s meant to build political pushback on the Trump administration’s aggressions in the region.
The president in an interview seemed to acknowledge that his threat last week to put another 100% in import taxes on Chinese products would be problematic for the U.S. economy.
According to excerpts of his interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump said his plan to dramatically hike import taxes on Nov. 1 unless China removed restrictions on exports of rare earths elements essentially amounted to tough talk. The president plans to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the end of this month in South Korea.
“It’s not sustainable,” Trump said of the possible tariffs, “but that’s what the number is. It’s probably not, you know, it could stand, but they forced me to do that.”
The president maintains that he has “always had a great relationship” with Xi and that Chinese officials “only respect strength.”
John Bolton arrived at a federal courthouse Friday to surrender to authorities and make his first court appearance on charges accusing the former Trump administration national security adviser of storing top secret records at home and sharing with relatives diary-like notes that contained classified information.
The 18-count federal indictment Thursday also suggests classified information was exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian government hacked Bolton’s email account and gained access to sensitive material he had shared. A Bolton representative told the FBI in 2021 that his emails had been hacked, prosecutors say, but did not reveal that Bolton had shared classified information through the account or that the hackers had possession of government secrets.
The closely watched case centers on a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power and who served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019. He later published a book highly critical of Trump.
John Bolton is expected to surrender to authorities and make his first court appearance.
The former Trump administration national security adviser is accused of storing top secret records at home and sharing with relatives diary-like notes that contained classified information. Bolton’s lawyer says Bolton “did not unlawfully share or store any information.”
Bolton is expected to appear later Friday in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland. It’s the third case to be filed against a Trump adversary in the past month. There are concerns that the Justice Department is pursuing the Republican president’s political enemies while at the same time sparing his allies from scrutiny.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has celebrated his country’s role as the host for upcoming talks between Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The leaders are expected to discuss ending the war in Ukraine when they meet in Budapest. Trump said Thursday the meeting would take place in about two weeks. Orbán, a close ally of Trump and Putin, suggested Hungary’s opposition to Western military aid to Ukraine influenced the decision.
Hungary has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons and has resisted EU sanctions against Russia. The meeting’s location holds symbolic significance, as Budapest was where the 1994 agreement on Ukraine’s sovereignty was signed.
A new AP-NORC poll finds that more U.S. adults support Trump’s handling of the conflict in Israel after he brokered a ceasefire deal in Gaza, but his approval ratings on domestic issues remain weak.
The survey reveals that Trump’s apparent success on the world stage has not improved his overall standing at home. Even some of those who voted for him believe he needs to do more to address issues such as the economy, health care and immigration.
The poll was conducted Oct. 9-13, after the ceasefire deal was announced. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job overall, unchanged from September.
