NYT: A Foreign Intelligence Service Intercepted Emails In Which John Bolton Shared Classified Information With Friends and Family Members

No one is, as they say, above the law.

This investigation began during the Biden Captivity. Of course, they declined to prosecute.

But they did investigate.

John Bolton Inquiry Eyes Emails Obtained by Foreign Government

It is not clear what country intercepted Mr. Bolton's private emails, but the investigation into President Trump's former national security adviser picked up momentum under the Biden administration.

If it turns out to be Israel, Tucker Carlson won't know what to think! He'll probably ask Darryl Cooper.

The investigation into President Trump's former national security adviser, 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.

So it's Hillary Clinton's bathroom server all over again.

Black Orchid points out the word "adversarial," which I missed, meaning this isn't Israel, and could just be Russia.

DRUMPF IS A RUSSIAN AGENT!!!!!

(Except that the intelligence was gathered under "President" Biden.)

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 in his 2020 memoir, "The Room Where It Happened."

In a sign of the stakes for Mr. Bolton, he is in talks to retain the high-profile criminal defense lawyer Abbe Lowell. Mr. Lowell, who has represented Mr. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Mr. Biden's son Hunter, is defending two other prominent perceived enemies of Mr. Trump who are now under scrutiny: the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, and Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board.

One major reason for conducting the searches was to see if Mr. Bolton possessed material that matched or corroborated the intelligence agency material, which, if found, would indicate that the emails found in the possession of the foreign spy service were genuine, the people said.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. Through a representative, Mr. Bolton declined to comment.

Two federal judges authorized the warrants for the F.B.I. to conduct the searches. To obtain the search warrants, prosecutors would have had to show that they had reason to believe that Mr. Bolton possessed evidence that showed he could have mishandled classified information.

Fox:

The FBI's raid on John Bolton's home and office is tied to an investigation that reaches beyond his controversial book, a source told Fox News Digital, fueling speculation that the former Trump adviser could face criminal charges.

The scope of any potential charges against Bolton, who served under President Donald Trump before falling out of favor with him in 2019, is uncertain, but experts tend to agree that Bolton has some legal exposure.

Prominent D.C.-based attorney Mark Zaid, who specializes in national security, said that while there are many unknowns about the Department of Justice's investigation into Bolton, his memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," could be an area of vulnerability for him.

"With respect to Bolton's book, he is potentially vulnerable if he maintains any copies of early drafts which were determined to contain 'voluminous' amounts of classified information when it was first submitted to the White House for review," Zaid told Fox News Digital. "Those drafts were likely disseminated, per normal course of business, to his literary agent, publisher and lawyer."

Peter Navarro writes in The Hill about the finding by a court that Bolton had disclosed classified information in his "cash-in" book. The judge, however, declined to stop the book's publication, as 200,000 copies had already been printed and the secrets Bolton disclosed were now already well-publicized.

Navarro:

John Bolton cashed in and America paid the price

I went to prison for defending the Constitutional separation of powers.

John Bolton (an occasional contributor to The Hill) may well wind up in prison, too if investigators uncover evidence and prosecutors decide to bring charges over his alleged classified disclosures.

When Bolton wrote his book, "The Room Where It Happened" -- reportedly receiving a $2 million advance -- he wasn't just dishing gossip. He was sharing information about Oval Office conversations and national security that should have stayed secret -- either by law or under executive privilege.

A federal judge already spelled this out in black and white. In June 2020, Judge Royce Lamberth warned that Bolton had "likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations." The judge only allowed the book to hit shelves because "the horse is already out of the barn," given the publication of excerpts and the shipment of 200,000 copies of the book.

Lamberth went further in his ruling, stressing that Bolton had "gambled with the national security of the United States" and that the government was "likely to succeed on the merits" of proving he unlawfully disclosed classified material. Translation: Bolton didn't just break trust -- he may have also broken the law.

I served with Bolton, and he was far too frequently a loose cannon, bent on bombings and coups-- Doctor Strangelove with a mustache. He agitated for airstrikes, pushed regime-change fantasies, and obsessed over military solutions when diplomacy was working. Then, instead of honoring executive privilege and confidential debate, Bolton acknowledged that in writing his memoir he relied on the "copious notes" he had conspicuously taken inside the White House.

That isn't service. That isn't patriotism. That's profiteering off of America's secrets.

Meanwhile, The Bulwark:

posted by Ace at 12:20 PM

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