Category World News

A federal grand jury in Maryland has indicted John Bolton, United States President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, over his handling of classified documents, charging him with retaining and transmitting national defence information.

The indictment, filed in federal court in Maryland on Thursday, charges Bolton with eight counts of transmission of national defence information and 10 counts of retention of national defence information, all in violation of the Espionage Act.

Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison if Bolton is convicted, but any sentence would be determined by a judge based on a range of factors.

Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement that his client “did not unlawfully share or store any information.”

Bolton served as US ambassador to the United Nations as well as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term before emerging as one of the president’s most vocal critics. He described Trump as unfit to be president in a memoir he released last year.

The charges come two months after FBI agents searched Bolton’s home and office, seeking evidence of possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to remove, retain or transmit national defence records, according to partially unsealed search warrants filed in federal court.

In his Maryland home, agents seized two cellphones, documents in folders labelled “Trump I-IV” and a binder labelled “statements and reflections to Allied Strikes”, according to court documents.

In Bolton’s office, agents found records labelled “confidential”, including documents that referenced weapons of mass destruction, the US mission to the United Nations, and other materials related to the government’s strategic communications, according to court records.

The indictment levied Thursday alleges Bolton transmitted confidential information via personal email, used private messaging accounts to send sensitive documents that were classified as top secret and illegally retained intelligence documents in his home, according to the Department of Justice.

Bolton is accused of sharing more than 1,000 pages of information about government activities with relatives, according to the indictment.

The indictment says the notes Bolton shared with the two people included information he gleaned from meetings with senior government officials, discussions with foreign leaders, and intelligence briefings.

Prosecutors said a “cyber actor” tied to the Iranian government hacked Bolton’s personal email after he left government service and accessed classified information. A representative for Bolton told the government about the hack but did not report that he stored classified information in the email account, according to the indictment.

“These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career – records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021,” Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in an emailed statement. “Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries – that is not a crime.”

Trump, who campaigned for the presidency on a vow of retribution after facing a slew of legal woes once his first term in the White House ended in 2021, has dispensed with decades-long norms designed to insulate federal law enforcement from political pressures.

In recent months, he has actively pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department to bring charges against his perceived adversaries, even driving out a prosecutor he deemed to be moving too slowly in doing so.

Asked by reporters at the White House about the Bolton indictment on Thursday, Trump said: “He’s a bad guy.”

Bolton served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term from 2018 to 2019. In that time, he clashed with the president over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea before getting fired in 2019.

He has subsequently criticised Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government, including in a 2020 book titled The Room Where it Happened, which portrayed the president as ill-informed on foreign policy.

The search warrant affidavit said a National Security Council official had reviewed the book manuscript and told Bolton in 2020 that it appeared to contain “significant amounts” of classified information, some at a top-secret level.

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a legal case against Trump over alleged fraud in his businesses, was charged with lying on a mortgage application, drawing accusations of political vindictiveness by the White House.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on September 25 on charges of making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation, which he denies. Trump has feuded with Comey since the Russia investigation, which examined possible ties between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Moscow.

Israel has again delayed the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt to allow for the movement of people, with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar saying it could be open on Sunday, as Israeli attacks killed at least three Palestinians in southern Gaza.

In a statement on Thursday, COGAT – an Israeli military unit that is responsible for civilian matters in the occupied territory – said coordination was under way with Egypt to set a date for reopening the Rafah crossing for movement of people after completing the necessary preparations.

COGAT said the Rafah crossing would remain closed to aid, claiming that the truce deal did not include its reopening. All humanitarian supplies bound for Gaza, it said, would instead pass through the Karem Abu Salem (called Kerem Shalom in Israel) crossing after Israeli security inspections.

Italian news agency ANSA quoted Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar as saying Rafah will probably be reopened on Sunday, without providing more details.

The crossing was due to be opened on Wednesday under the terms of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement that took effect last week.

For Palestinians in Gaza, the Rafah crossing was long the only connection to the outside world and also the only exit that was not directly controlled by Israel. Last May, Israeli forces raided the crossing, seized control of it and razed its buildings.

For the first time in 20 years, Israeli forces directly controlled the border crossing and deployed soldiers all across the Philadelphi Corridor, where they remain today.

As part of the US ceasefire deal, which calls for their gradual withdrawal, Israeli forces remain in approximately 53 percent of Gaza, including most of Rafah, raising questions about its use.

Seventy million tonnes of rubble

Following the ceasefire deal last week, the United Nations said there has been little progress in aid deliveries into Gaza and that assistance must enter at scale to meet urgent humanitarian needs.

With famine conditions present in parts of Gaza, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher said on Wednesday that thousands of aid vehicles would now have to enter Gaza weekly to ease the crisis, with medical care also scarce and most of the 2.2 million population displaced.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram told Al Jazeera Palestinians in northern Gaza are in “desperate need” of food and water as thousands have returned to total destruction.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from the al-Mawasi area in the south of the Gaza Strip, Ingram said that in order to scale up humanitarian aid deliveries, multiple crossings into the enclave must be opened.

“The stakes are really high,” she said. “There are 28,000 children who were diagnosed with malnutrition in July and August alone, and thousands more since then. So, we need to make sure it’s not just food coming in, but malnutrition treatments, as well.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office said the aid that had entered since Israel’s assault partially subsided was a “drop in the ocean”.

“The region urgently requires a large, continuous and organised inflow of aid, fuel, cooking gas, and relief and medical supplies,” it said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the office also said that as many as 70 million tonnes of rubble and debris litter the territory after Israel’s two-year bombardment.

“This rubble includes thousands of homes, facilities, and vital infrastructures,” it said. “The process of removing this massive rubble faces severe obstacles, most notably the lack of heavy equipment and machinery due to the Israeli occupation’s ban on their entry, the complete closure of border crossings, and the deliberate prevention of bringing in the materials and machinery necessary to recover the bodies of victims,” it added.

Israeli violations continue

The statement comes after Israel imposed new restrictions on aid entering Gaza earlier this week and postponed reopening the Rafah crossing, accusing Hamas of being too slow in returning the rest of the deceased captives.

The group says it has handed over all bodies it could recover. The armed wing of Hamas said the handover of more bodies in Gaza, reduced to vast tracts of rubble by Israel’s bombardment, would require the admission of heavy machinery and excavating equipment into the blockaded enclave.

On Thursday, a senior Hamas official accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by killing at least 24 people in attacks since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators.

“The occupying state is working day and night to undermine the agreement through its violations on the ground,” he said.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the bodies of 29 people killed in Israeli attacks have arrived at the enclave’s hospitals in the last 24 hours. This includes 22 bodies recovered from under rubble, three who succumbed to their wounds, and four people killed in new Israeli attacks.

At least three people were killed in Israeli air strikes in eastern Khan Younis on Thursday, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The health ministry also said the bodies of 30 Palestinians killed during the war were returned on Thursday, taking the number of bodies it has received since Monday to 120.

Authorities in Gaza say the bodies exhibit signs of torture, including hanging and rope marks, bound hands and feet, and gunfire at close range.

The bodies – dozens of which have yet to be formally identified – showed “conclusive evidence of field executions and brutal torture”, the office said.

Footage shows Palestinians in Gaza City clearing debris from their destroyed homes after returning under the ceasefire. Gaza City resident Ahmad Saleh Sbeih said his 250 square metre apartment “could collapse at any moment.” “It’s better than the street,” he said.

“There is a killer prowling the Caribbean, bloodthirsty, looking for wars.” Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN accused the United States of seeking a coup in the Latin American country, after its strikes on small boats and President Trump’s authorisation for CIA activities there.