Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton was charged Thursday with storing top secret records at home and sharing with relatives diary-like notes about his time in government that contained classified information.

The 18-count indictment also suggests classified information was exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian regime hacked Bolton’s email account in 2021 and gained access to secrets he had shared.

A Bolton representative told the FBI that his emails had been hacked, prosecutors say, but did not reveal that he had shared classified information through the account or that the hackers had this information.

The investigation into Bolton, who served for more than a year in U.S. President Donald Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019, burst into public view in August, when the FBI searched his home in Maryland and his office in Washington, D.C., for classified records he may have held onto from his years in government.

The indictment, filed in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., sets the stage for a closely watched court case focusing on a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power — perhaps most notably during his time as U.S. ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush. But after leaving Trump’s first government, Bolton emerged as a prominent and vocal critic of the president.

The indictment alleges that Bolton “abused” his position as national security adviser by sharing more than 1,000 pages of information about “his day-to-day activities” in his job with two people who were related to him and who were not authorized to view them. He also is accused of illegally retaining at his Maryland home “documents, writings, and notes” related to national defence, including information that was classified up to the top secret level, the indictment says.

Bolton denied the charges in a defiant statement Thursday, calling them part of an “intensive effort” by Trump to “intimidate his opponents.”

“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.

His lawyer says the charges stem from portions of his client’s personal diaries, which are “unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021.”

“Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries — that is not a crime. We look forward to proving once again that Amb. Bolton did not unlawfully share or store any information,” Abbe Lowell said in a statement.

Though the investigation that produced the indictment was underway during the Biden administration and began well before Trump’s second term, the case will unfold against the backdrop of broader concerns that his Justice Department is being weaponized to go after his political adversaries.

It follows separate indictments over the last month accusing former FBI director James Comey of lying to the U.S. Congress and New York Attorney General Letitia James of committing bank fraud and making a false statement, charges they both deny.

Both of those cases were filed in federal court in Virginia by a prosecutor Trump hastily installed in the position after growing frustrated that investigations into high-profile enemies had not resulted in prosecutions.

The Bolton case, by contrast, was filed in Maryland by a U.S. attorney who before being elevated to the job had been a career prosecutor in the office.

Book investigated

Questions about Bolton’s handling of classified information date back years.

He faced a lawsuit and a Justice Department investigation after leaving office related to information in a 2020 book he published, The Room Where It Happened, that portrayed Trump as grossly uninformed about foreign policy.

The Trump administration asserted that Bolton’s manuscript included classified information that could harm national security if exposed.

Bolton’s lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer contained classified information.

A search warrant affidavit that was previously unsealed 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.

Lowell has said that many of the documents seized in August had been approved as part of a pre-publication review for Bolton’s book.

He said that many were decades old, from his client’s long career in the State Department, as an assistant attorney general and as UN ambassador.

Agents during the August search seized multiple documents labeled “classified,” “confidential” and “secret” from Bolton’s office, according to previously unsealed court filings. Some of the seized records appeared to concern weapons of mass destruction, national “strategic communication” and the U.S. mission to the United Nations, the filings stated.

The indictment is a dramatic moment in Bolton’s long career in government.

He served in the Justice Department during Ronald Reagan’s administration and was the State Department’s point man on arms control during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Bolton was nominated by Bush to serve as U.S. ambassador to the UN, but the strong supporter of the Iraq war was unable to win Senate confirmation and resigned after serving 17 months as a Bush recess appointment. That allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate confirmation.

In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security adviser. But his brief tenure was characterized by disputes with the president over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine.

Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure, with Trump announcing on social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton’s resignation.

Bolton subsequently criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government in his 2020 book, including by alleging that Trump directly tied providing military aid to the country’s willingness to conduct investigations into Joe Biden, who was soon to be Trump’s Democratic 2020 election rival, and members of his family.

The president responded by slamming Bolton as a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”

Trump also said at the time that the book contained “highly classified information” and that Bolton “did not have approval” for publishing it.