WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security advisor, was indicted on Thursday -- the third foe of the US president to be hit with criminal charges in recent weeks.

The 76-year-old veteran diplomat was charged by a federal grand jury in Maryland with 18 counts of transmitting and retaining classified information.

The 26-page indictment accuses Bolton of sharing top secret documents by email with two "unauthorized individuals" who are not identified but are believed to be his wife and daughter.

It says he shared more than 1,000 pages of "diary-life" entries about his work as national security advisor via non-government email or a messaging app.

The Justice Department said the documents "revealed intelligence about future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations."

Each of the counts carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

"Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

In a statement to US media, Bolton refuted the charges and said he had "become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department... with charges that were declined before or distort the facts."

Asked for his reaction to Bolton's indictment, Trump told reporters his former aide is a "bad guy" and "that's the way it goes."

- Trump critics in legal jeopardy -

Bolton's indictment follows the filing of criminal charges by the Justice Department against two other prominent critics of the Republican president -- New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey.

The 66-year-old James was indicted by a grand jury in Virginia on October 9 on charges of bank fraud and making false statements related to a property she purchased in 2020 in Norfolk, Virginia.

James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for financial fraud, has rejected the charges as "baseless" and described them as "political retribution."

Comey, 64, pleaded not guilty on October 8 to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.

His lawyer has said he will seek to have the case thrown out on the grounds that it is a vindictive and selective prosecution.

Trump recently publicly urged Bondi in a social media post to take action against James, Comey and others he sees as enemies, in an escalation of his campaign against political opponents.

Trump did not specifically mention Bolton in the Truth Social post, but he has lashed out at his former advisor in the past and withdrew his security detail shortly after returning to the White House in January.

- 'Unfit to be president' -

A longtime critic of the Iranian regime, Bolton was a national security hawk and has received death threats from Tehran.

As part of the investigation into Bolton, FBI agents raided his Maryland suburban home and his Washington office in August.

Bolton served as Trump's national security advisor in his first term and later angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, "The Room Where It Happened."

He has since become a highly visible and pugnacious detractor of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called "unfit to be president."

Since January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, purging government officials he deemed to be disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him and pulling federal funding from universities.

After Trump left the White House in 2021, James brought a major civil fraud case against him, alleging he and his real estate company had inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.

A New York state judge ordered Trump to pay $464 million, but a higher court removed the financial penalty while upholding the underlying judgment.

The cases against James and Comey were filed by Trump's handpicked US attorney, Lindsey Halligan, after the previous federal prosecutor resigned, saying there was not enough evidence to charge them.

Appointed to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation by then-president Barack Obama in 2013, Comey was fired by Trump in 2017 amid the probe into whether any members of the Trump presidential campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 election.

Trump was accused of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Neither case came to trial, and special counsel Jack Smith -- in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president -- dropped them both after Trump won the November 2024 presidential election.