October 17, 2025 • 10 mins
JOHN BOLTON INDICTED - President Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton has been indicted on 18 counts for mishandling classified documents. National Correspondent Rory O’Neill explains the charges, what prosecutors allege, and how this case could impact ongoing national security investigations.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Former Trump National security advisor John Bolton has been indicted
by a federal grand jury in Maryland on eighteen counts
tied to mishandling classified material, including transmitting and retaining national
defense information. The charges center on Bolton's diary like entries,
more than a thousand pages allegedly sent to his wife
(00:22):
and daughter while he was handling top secret national security matters.
The FBI rateed Bolton's home and his office in August,
finding documents marked confidential and secret, including some related to
weapons of mass destruction and military operations in Syria. Bolton
allegedly used private email accounts, including Aol and Google, to
(00:45):
transmit classified information, and FBI Affidavid also says his email
was later hacked by a foreign entity tied to Iran,
exposing sensitive material. Now, of course, when it was President
Trump under investigation for mishandling classified documents, Bolton thought it
was pretty serious.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
President had a habit of asking to retain sensitive documents,
and from time to time he did that and we
didn't know what happened to them. And it was always
a concern that because he didn't really fully understand the risks,
the sources and methods and other dangers of revealing classified
(01:23):
information that it might get out to the wrong people.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, I mean it was a concern, you know, I
mean miss handle and classified information.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well it's crazy. Though, While he said that he was
doing all this in his.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Home allegedly allegedly.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Bolton issued a defied statement in response to the charges,
calling them retribution from President Trump, and he said the
Justice Department was being weaponized to intimidate opponents. He's expected
to make his initial court appearance today before a federal
judge in Maryland. President Trump reacted to the news from
the Oval office yesterday, shortly after the story broke.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
You tell me for the first time. But I think
he he's, you know, a bad person.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I think he's a bad guy.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, he's a bad guy, too bad.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
But that's the way he goes He acts like he
didn't know what was now.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Look my take on this, nobody was careful with classified information.
Hillary Trump, Biden, Bolton. Hillary had a private server. Trump
had boxes of documents next to a toilet, Biden had
them next to a corvette. Bolton was sending them through
aol You got Pete Hagsath sharing them on signal in
a group chat with the journalists.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I mean, my god, yeah, they just don't care. They
all do it.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I mean the other spy agencies for our adversaries must
be like, you.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Know what, we could probably scale back.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
We don't need as many spies because they're just like, yeah,
they're putting the information out there.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
It's easy for us to get.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Now, let's bring in our national correspondent, Rory O'Neil, who's
report brought to you by Mark Spain real Estate. So, Rory,
former Trump national security advisor John Bolton in indicted and
honestly you should have been indicted, mainly for still using
an AOL email.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
I mean, come on twenty Yeah, what what's going on?
All right?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Better?
Speaker 5 (03:13):
Hey, what better disguise is there?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah that's true. Well apparently a foreign entity did and
hacked it.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
So yeah, that was.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Well right, All the secrets are on my MySpace page.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Yeah, so it's eighteen counts.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
It's interesting though that this comes out of Maryland, not
the Eastern District of Virginia. With a new sort of
puppet prosecutor has been put in. More career people are
doing this prosecution. Most legal analysts say there's meat on
the bones when it comes to this case compared to
the other two with Letitia James and James Comy.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
But we'll see how this goes.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
The defense has been the FBI knew about this back
in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one and did nothing about it.
The prosecution is only happening pace because Donald Trump is
now in office.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You know, John Bolton, he didn't just mishandle classified information.
According to this indictment, he actively disseminated it to two
family members, his wife and daughter, who didn't have security clearance.
He did it over AOL which was hacked. And this
is serious information. You had stuff relating to military attack plans,
(04:26):
missile launches, foreign leaders, sensitive sources and methods. And I
found this really interesting from the indictment. I did not
know this. Apparently John Bolton loves exclamation points.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
He does.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I was noticing them too. He will send things and
be like more coming soon there, something like that, And
it was just crazy, like he was really excited to
be sharing all this classified stuff with his family members, right.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Too much going on three exclamation points. I've done much
of Friday in London because I didn't take many notes
and wanted to get it down before I forgot exclamation points.
More stuff coming, three exclam points, none of which we
talk about exclamation point like, I mean every ends had
three exclamation points.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Yeah, very very hyped up and excited.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
It seems to be the system was he'd email these
diary notes back the wife and daughter would then print
them off.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Now that's sort of have two crimes here, the transmission
of it and then even keeping it as a printed document.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Now it doubles up the crime.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, I think Bolton's in some trouble here. The James
Comy indictment, I don't think that's going anywhere. The Leticia
James indictment, I don't know if that's going anywhere. This one,
I think probably is. And look, when you take a
step back, if we're being honest here, nobody was careful
(05:45):
with classified information. Hillary Clinton with the private server, Trump
with the boxes next to the toilet at mar A Lago.
You had Mike Pence, who was investigated for having classified
documents you shouldn't have. You had, of course, Joe Biden
right next. Yeah, well you've got Joe Biden right next
to the corvette in the garage. And then you've got
Pete except chatting with journalists over signal uh and and
(06:09):
you know you had military attack plans that were part
of the Bolton stuff. I mean Hegseth was doing it
in real time, so you know, I mean I think
that's the take with.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Nobody and that's like it's sensitive.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
No, And that's just what we know based on these
high level figures. Can you imagine what else is probably
going on? I mean, yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Just just to be the contrarian. The other argument is
everything is labeled classified.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah, well that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Right, Yeah, they overclassify things.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, no other, no question about it. There's an overclassification problem.
But yeah, I think I think John Bolton's in a
bit of trouble. I don't know if he needs to
go to prison over this. I think honestly, the punishment
for John Bolton you make him shave his mustache. I
think you do that and that's punishment enough. I think
(06:59):
if he can you imagine if he had to shave
that off, that's his whole long.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, take your hat off, all right, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
We're joined by our National correspondent, Rory O'Neil so, Rory
Big meeting today between President Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski.
That follows are called the Trump had with Vladimir Putin
and UH Tomahawk missiles and providing them to Ukraine seems
to be the big issue that's going to be talked
about today.
Speaker 6 (07:28):
Right, And President Trump on True Social during the call
with Putin. I like to think it was just during
the translations, is when he had time to post on
True Social because he said.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
There in real time live updates.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Yeah, lives live tweeting the call.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Probably during the translation.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
But yeah, Zelensky at the White House today and then
the setup for this Putin Trump meeting in Budapest also happening.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
But these long range missiles.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Ukraine wants them because they say we can't reach the
weapons depots, the manufacturing facilities where they make the drones
in Russia. They want to be able to strike those locations.
Only the US Tomahawk can do it. Does NATO buy
them for Ukraine? What's going to be allowed? Remember if
President Biden didn't want to give the long range weapons
out of fear that you know, Ukraine would they would attack.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
The Bible hardly wanted to give anything. Every time there
was an ask, he was like, Oh, I'm afraid it's
going to escalate. Well U escalated, Nay.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
He wanted to give defensive weapons, and that's what artillery.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
I don't think Trump's going to give Zelensky and Ukraine
the tomahawks, not with that meeting on the books with
Vladimir Putin. But I still think, you know, Putin's just
playing this out and at some point we're really gonna
have to put some serious pressure on him if Trump
really wants to end this war, if he wants to
get a deal done, because.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
You just keep going like this.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And I mean, how long ago did I say that
Putin was going to just drag this thing out?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
I mean, what was that like back in January?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Probably when Trump got in right and said he was
going to fix it.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, like, Putin's going to drag it out. And sure enough,
that's exactly what he's been doing. Uh, National Correspondent Roy O'Neil.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
Made it worse, and made it worse since Alaska. You know,
Putin's been ramped up significantly.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Since you're right, there have been a lot more recently,
Our National correspondent Roory O'Neil with US this morning.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Rory.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Appreciate the update. Thanks so much, Ryan, Ryan, have a
great weekend.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Three exclamation points.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Thank you the exclamation points. I mean, it's just like
I guess his things.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So I have a friend and in high school we
would all write notes to each other and stuff, and
we would kind of make fun of her because of
her over use of exclamation points. It was like four
or five. And when I was reading through that stuff,
less thought I thought it was my friend Kristen and
all her exclamation points.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yes, I think every now and then one is like
a lot of times if I'm texting, maybe it'll be
thanks with an exclamation point.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You don't Thanks Thanks are very dry and unmeaningful.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Well for other people, come very nice for other people.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I do it, okay, Yeah, I see where.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I right, But one not like five, you know what
I mean?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And not over just a nonsense and too much going
on like none of which we talk about. Exclamation point,
exclamation point, exclamation point.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
The Ryan Gorman Show on news radio WFLA.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Ryan Gorman Show,
and find us online at Ryan Gormanshow dot com.
Former Trump National security advisor John Bolton has been indicted
by a federal grand jury in Maryland on eighteen counts
tied to mishandling classified material, including transmitting and retaining national
defense information. The charges center on Bolton's diary like entries,
more than a thousand pages allegedly sent to his wife
(00:22):
and daughter while he was handling top secret national security matters.
The FBI rateed Bolton's home and his office in August,
finding documents marked confidential and secret, including some related to
weapons of mass destruction and military operations in Syria. Bolton
allegedly used private email accounts, including Aol and Google, to
(00:45):
transmit classified information, and FBI Affidavid also says his email
was later hacked by a foreign entity tied to Iran,
exposing sensitive material. Now, of course, when it was President
Trump under investigation for mishandling classified documents, Bolton thought it
was pretty serious.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
President had a habit of asking to retain sensitive documents,
and from time to time he did that and we
didn't know what happened to them. And it was always
a concern that because he didn't really fully understand the risks,
the sources and methods and other dangers of revealing classified
(01:23):
information that it might get out to the wrong people.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, I mean it was a concern, you know, I
mean miss handle and classified information.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well it's crazy. Though, While he said that he was
doing all this in his.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Home allegedly allegedly.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Bolton issued a defied statement in response to the charges,
calling them retribution from President Trump, and he said the
Justice Department was being weaponized to intimidate opponents. He's expected
to make his initial court appearance today before a federal
judge in Maryland. President Trump reacted to the news from
the Oval office yesterday, shortly after the story broke.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
You tell me for the first time. But I think
he he's, you know, a bad person.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I think he's a bad guy.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, he's a bad guy, too bad.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
But that's the way he goes He acts like he
didn't know what was now.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Look my take on this, nobody was careful with classified information.
Hillary Trump, Biden, Bolton. Hillary had a private server. Trump
had boxes of documents next to a toilet, Biden had
them next to a corvette. Bolton was sending them through
aol You got Pete Hagsath sharing them on signal in
a group chat with the journalists.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I mean, my god, yeah, they just don't care. They
all do it.
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I mean the other spy agencies for our adversaries must
be like, you.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Know what, we could probably scale back.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
We don't need as many spies because they're just like, yeah,
they're putting the information out there.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
It's easy for us to get.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Now, let's bring in our national correspondent, Rory O'Neil, who's
report brought to you by Mark Spain real Estate. So, Rory,
former Trump national security advisor John Bolton in indicted and
honestly you should have been indicted, mainly for still using
an AOL email.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
I mean, come on twenty Yeah, what what's going on?
All right?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Better?
Speaker 5 (03:13):
Hey, what better disguise is there?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah that's true. Well apparently a foreign entity did and
hacked it.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
So yeah, that was.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Well right, All the secrets are on my MySpace page.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Yeah, so it's eighteen counts.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
It's interesting though that this comes out of Maryland, not
the Eastern District of Virginia. With a new sort of
puppet prosecutor has been put in. More career people are
doing this prosecution. Most legal analysts say there's meat on
the bones when it comes to this case compared to
the other two with Letitia James and James Comy.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
But we'll see how this goes.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
The defense has been the FBI knew about this back
in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one and did nothing about it.
The prosecution is only happening pace because Donald Trump is
now in office.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You know, John Bolton, he didn't just mishandle classified information.
According to this indictment, he actively disseminated it to two
family members, his wife and daughter, who didn't have security clearance.
He did it over AOL which was hacked. And this
is serious information. You had stuff relating to military attack plans,
(04:26):
missile launches, foreign leaders, sensitive sources and methods. And I
found this really interesting from the indictment. I did not
know this. Apparently John Bolton loves exclamation points.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
He does.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I was noticing them too. He will send things and
be like more coming soon there, something like that, And
it was just crazy, like he was really excited to
be sharing all this classified stuff with his family members, right.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Too much going on three exclamation points. I've done much
of Friday in London because I didn't take many notes
and wanted to get it down before I forgot exclamation points.
More stuff coming, three exclam points, none of which we
talk about exclamation point like, I mean every ends had
three exclamation points.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Yeah, very very hyped up and excited.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
It seems to be the system was he'd email these
diary notes back the wife and daughter would then print
them off.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Now that's sort of have two crimes here, the transmission
of it and then even keeping it as a printed document.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Now it doubles up the crime.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, I think Bolton's in some trouble here. The James
Comy indictment, I don't think that's going anywhere. The Leticia
James indictment, I don't know if that's going anywhere. This one,
I think probably is. And look, when you take a
step back, if we're being honest here, nobody was careful
(05:45):
with classified information. Hillary Clinton with the private server, Trump
with the boxes next to the toilet at mar A Lago.
You had Mike Pence, who was investigated for having classified
documents you shouldn't have. You had, of course, Joe Biden
right next. Yeah, well you've got Joe Biden right next
to the corvette in the garage. And then you've got
Pete except chatting with journalists over signal uh and and
(06:09):
you know you had military attack plans that were part
of the Bolton stuff. I mean Hegseth was doing it
in real time, so you know, I mean I think
that's the take with.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Nobody and that's like it's sensitive.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
No, And that's just what we know based on these
high level figures. Can you imagine what else is probably
going on? I mean, yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Just just to be the contrarian. The other argument is
everything is labeled classified.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah, well that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Right, Yeah, they overclassify things.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, no other, no question about it. There's an overclassification problem.
But yeah, I think I think John Bolton's in a
bit of trouble. I don't know if he needs to
go to prison over this. I think honestly, the punishment
for John Bolton you make him shave his mustache. I
think you do that and that's punishment enough. I think
(06:59):
if he can you imagine if he had to shave
that off, that's his whole long.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, take your hat off, all right, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
We're joined by our National correspondent, Rory O'Neil so, Rory
Big meeting today between President Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski.
That follows are called the Trump had with Vladimir Putin
and UH Tomahawk missiles and providing them to Ukraine seems
to be the big issue that's going to be talked
about today.
Speaker 6 (07:28):
Right, And President Trump on True Social during the call
with Putin. I like to think it was just during
the translations, is when he had time to post on
True Social because he said.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
There in real time live updates.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Yeah, lives live tweeting the call.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Probably during the translation.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
But yeah, Zelensky at the White House today and then
the setup for this Putin Trump meeting in Budapest also happening.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
But these long range missiles.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Ukraine wants them because they say we can't reach the
weapons depots, the manufacturing facilities where they make the drones
in Russia. They want to be able to strike those locations.
Only the US Tomahawk can do it. Does NATO buy
them for Ukraine? What's going to be allowed? Remember if
President Biden didn't want to give the long range weapons
out of fear that you know, Ukraine would they would attack.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
The Bible hardly wanted to give anything. Every time there
was an ask, he was like, Oh, I'm afraid it's
going to escalate. Well U escalated, Nay.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
He wanted to give defensive weapons, and that's what artillery.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
I don't think Trump's going to give Zelensky and Ukraine
the tomahawks, not with that meeting on the books with
Vladimir Putin. But I still think, you know, Putin's just
playing this out and at some point we're really gonna
have to put some serious pressure on him if Trump
really wants to end this war, if he wants to
get a deal done, because.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
You just keep going like this.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And I mean, how long ago did I say that
Putin was going to just drag this thing out?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
I mean, what was that like back in January?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Probably when Trump got in right and said he was
going to fix it.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, like, Putin's going to drag it out. And sure enough,
that's exactly what he's been doing. Uh, National Correspondent Roy O'Neil.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
Made it worse, and made it worse since Alaska. You know,
Putin's been ramped up significantly.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Since you're right, there have been a lot more recently,
Our National correspondent Roory O'Neil with US this morning.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Rory.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Appreciate the update. Thanks so much, Ryan, Ryan, have a
great weekend.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Three exclamation points.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Thank you the exclamation points. I mean, it's just like
I guess his things.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So I have a friend and in high school we
would all write notes to each other and stuff, and
we would kind of make fun of her because of
her over use of exclamation points. It was like four
or five. And when I was reading through that stuff,
less thought I thought it was my friend Kristen and
all her exclamation points.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yes, I think every now and then one is like
a lot of times if I'm texting, maybe it'll be
thanks with an exclamation point.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You don't Thanks Thanks are very dry and unmeaningful.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Well for other people, come very nice for other people.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I do it, okay, Yeah, I see where.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I right, But one not like five, you know what
I mean?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And not over just a nonsense and too much going
on like none of which we talk about. Exclamation point,
exclamation point, exclamation point.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
The Ryan Gorman Show on news radio WFLA.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Ryan Gorman Show,
and find us online at Ryan Gormanshow dot com.
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