Former National Security Advisor John Bolton speaks at the John F. Kennedy Jr Forum at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., September 29, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Sarah N. Lynch

GREENBELT, Maryland (Reuters) -The Justice Department is expected to ask a grand jury on Thursday to indict President Donald Trump's former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, a person familiar with the matter said.

The possible indictment comes after court documents made public last month revealed that Bolton was under federal investigation for potential mishandling of classified information. The details of the charges prosecutors would seek were not immediately clear.

If the grand jury decides to indict Bolton, it would mark the third time in recent weeks that the Justice Department has secured criminal charges against one of the Republican president's critics.

Bolton's lawyer Abbe Lowell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lowell has previously denied that Bolton engaged in wrongdoing.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office in Maryland, which is expected to seek the charges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TRUMP VOWS RETRIBUTION

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 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.

Bolton served as U.S. 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 possible charges against Bolton come shortly after the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey, who investigated Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his family real estate company.

Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017, has pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstruction of Congress.

James is facing charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. She has denied wrongdoing and is slated to appear in federal court later this month.

FBI SEARCHED BOLTON'S HOME

Senior leaders at the U.S. Justice Department had been pushing for swift charges against Bolton, despite initial concern from some line prosecutors in Maryland, as well as attorneys in the National Security Division who felt more investigation was needed and feared the case was being rushed, two people familiar with the matter previously told Reuters.

Prosecutors more recently concluded they were comfortable proceeding after taking more time to review the evidence and worked over the weekend to prepare the case, one of those sources added.

FBI agents conducted searches of Bolton's home and office in August, seeking evidence of possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to remove, retain or transmit national defense records, according to partially unsealed search warrants filed in federal court.

The agents found documents labeled "confidential" in Bolton's Washington, D.C. office that referenced weapons of mass destruction, unsealed court records show.

In his Maryland home, agents seized two cell phones, documents in folders labeled "Trump I-IV" and a binder labeled "statements and reflections to Allied Strikes," according to court documents.

Court records also show that a foreign entity hacked Bolton's email account, though details of the hack are redacted.

Trump himself was previously indicted on Espionage Act violations for allegedly transporting classified records to his Florida home after departing the White House in 2021 and refusing repeated requests by the government to return them. Trump had pleaded not guilty and that case was dropped after he won reelection in November 2024.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Greenbelt, Maryland; Additional reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Scott Malone, Noeleen Walder and Bill Berkrot)