John Bolton indicted on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information
Hugo Lowell
A federal grand jury has indicted John Bolton, the former national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information.
The indictment, filed in Maryland, appears to ultimately have had sign off from career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office there despite initial reluctance to bring a case before the end of the year.
The 18-count indictment against Bolton involves 8 counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information and ten counts of retaining classified information under the Espionage Act, according to the 26-page indictment.
Key events
Appeals court declines to lift order blocking Trump from deploying national guard troops in Illinois
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s request to lift a lower court’s order that temporarily blocks the deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois during its appeal.
The ruling allows a temporary restraining order against the deployment issued by US District judge April Perry in Chicago last week to remain in place.
A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, made up of judges nominated by George HW Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, concluded that that “the facts do not justify the President’s actions.”
Trump had asserted the power to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois after claiming federal immigration enforcement officer had faced violent protests as they attempted to arrest people.
“Immigration arrests and deportations have proceeded apace in Illinois over the past year, and the administration has been proclaiming the success of its current efforts to enforce immigration laws in the Chicago area,” the court said.
The court said there had likely been a violation of Illinois’ constitutional right to sovereignty, made worse by the fact that Texas National Guard troops were sent into the state.
The court did pause a portion of Perry’s order that had barred the federalization of Illinois National Guard troops, allowing the troops to remain under federal control.
Carter Sherman
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is urging US employers to create new fertility benefit options to cover in vitro fertilization and other infertility treatments.
In an announcement from the Oval Office, Donald Trump also said his administration had cut a deal with the drug manufacturer EMD Serono to lower the cost of one of its fertility drugs and list the drug on the government website TrumpRx.
Bolton charged with retaining classified information, the crime Trump was indicted for
The justice department says that Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, has been charged with 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information and eight counts of transmission of that information.
The indictment alleges that Bolton used personal email and messaging app accounts to send documents classified as high as Top Secret.
The documents contained intelligence about what the government terms “future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations.”
The indictment also alleges that Bolton, like Trump after he left office in 2021, kept secret documents in his home. The documents Bolton kept included “intelligence on an adversary’s leaders as well as information revealing sources and collections used to obtain statements on a foreign adversary,” the government alleges.
“Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable,” Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, said. “No one is above the law.”
When Donald Trump was indicted for the same crime by special counsel Jack Smith in 2023, in an indictment that cited evidence that Trump showed a ghostwriter working for his former chief of staff Mark Meadows “a four-page report” detailing US plans for striking Iran.
According to audio of the conversation obtained by CNN, Trump even acknowledged that the document he showed the writer was “highly confidential, secret information” he could not make public because it was “still a secret”.
John Bolton indicted on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information
Hugo Lowell
A federal grand jury has indicted John Bolton, the former national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information.
The indictment, filed in Maryland, appears to ultimately have had sign off from career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office there despite initial reluctance to bring a case before the end of the year.
The 18-count indictment against Bolton involves 8 counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information and ten counts of retaining classified information under the Espionage Act, according to the 26-page indictment.
John Bolton, Trump ally turned critic, reportedly indicted in Maryland
John Bolton, who served as Donald Trump’s national security advisor during his first term, but turned into a fierce Trump critic, has reportedly been indicted on federal charges by a grand jury in Maryland, officials tell MSNBC and CNN.
At the White House a reporter asked Trump for his reaction to the news that Bolton was just indicted by a grand jury in Maryland.
The president said: “I didn’t know that. You’re telling me for the first time, but I think he’s a bad person. I think he’s a bad guy.”
“That’s the way it goes, right? That’s the way it goes,” said the president who vowed retribution on his political enemies while campaigning to be restored to office last year.
Bolton becomes the third Trump critic to be indicted by his justice department in the past month, along with James Comey, the former FBI director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.
Bolton has reportedly been under investigation for retaining classified information after leaving office, and showing it to associates.
Lauren Gambino
The United States is “on a trajectory” toward authoritarian rule, according to a stark new intelligence-style assessment by former US intelligence and national security officials, who warn that democratic backsliding is accelerating under the Trump administration – and may soon become entrenched without organized resistance.
The report, titled Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline, was released on Thursday by the Steady State, a network of more than 340 former officers of the CIA, NSA, state department, and other national-security agencies.
“These are people who have seen these indicators develop in countries that shifted dramatically away from democracy towards authoritarianism,” Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior intelligence official who spent two decades at the NSA, told reporters on Thursday. “And we’re seeing those things happening in our country today.”
The analysts conclude with “moderate to high confidence” that the US is moving toward what scholars call “competitive authoritarianism”, a system in which elections and courts continue to function, but are “systematically manipulated” to consolidate executive power and weaken checks and balances. According to the assessment, these trends are increasingly visible in the US, as part of a broader effort by Donald Trump in his second term to “ensure loyalty and ideological conformity” across the federal government.
US admiral leading forces in Latin America to retire early, Hegseth says
Amid escalating tensions with Venezuela, and US military strikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean, the US admiral who commands military forces in Latin America will step down at the end of this year, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth announced on social media.
The admiral, Alvin Holsey, just took over the US military’s Southern Command late last year for a position that normally lasts three years.
A source told Reuters that there had been tension between him and Hegseth and questions about whether he would be fired in the days leading up to the announcement.
The New York Times reports that an unnamed US official said that Holsey “had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.”
Hegseth, in his social media post, did not disclose the reason for Holsey’s plan “to retire at year’s end.”
Hegseth’s post noted that Holsey began his career “through the NROTC program at Morehouse College in 1988.” Morehouse is a private, historically black college in Atlanta.
In February, Donald Trump abruptly fired the air force general CQ Brown Jr as chair of the joint chiefs of staff, sidelining a history-making Black fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign to purge the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.
In 2021, Holsey recorded a public service announcement urging Black Americans to take the covid-19 vaccine.
Trump on his social media site said he’s “outraged” by a vote planned on Friday by the International Maritime Organization to impose a global fee on the carbon emissions produced by container ships.
“The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping, and will not adhere to it in any way, shape, or form,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
He added: “We will not tolerate increased prices on American Consumers OR, the creation of a Green New Scam Bureaucracy to spend YOUR money on their Green dreams. Stand with the United States, and vote NO in London tomorrow!”
The US Chamber of Commerce is suing the Trump administration over the $100,000 fee imposed on H-1B visa petitions.
The country’s biggest business lobbying group argues that the new fee is unlawful because it overrides provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that govern the H-1B program, including the requirement that fees be based on the costs incurred by the government in processing visas.
Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s chief policy officer, said in a statement:
“The new $100,000 visa fee will make it cost-prohibitive for US employers, especially start-ups and small and midsize businesses, to utilize the H-1B program, which was created by Congress expressly to ensure that American businesses of all sizes can access the global talent they need to grow their operations here in the U.S.”
University of Pennsylvania rejects White House funding compact
The University of Pennsylvania has become the latest educational institution to reject the White House’s proposed preferential funding compact, according to an email to the University community.
“Earlier today, I informed the US Department of Education that Penn respectfully declines to sign the proposed Compact,” President J Larry Jameson wrote in a message to the Penn community Thursday, adding that his university did provide feedback to the department on the proposal.
The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is a proposed agreement from the Trump administration that would impose restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and limits on international student enrolment.
Penn’s refusal makes it the third of the nine institutions that had initially been offered the deal to publicly turn it down. No institution has agreed to sign the compact so far.
Brown University announced it had rejected the offer Wednesday, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) did the same last Friday. After MIT’s rejection, the Trump administration said the compact was open to all colleges and universities that want to sign it.
Democrats block defense spending bill as shutdown tensions rise and bipartisan trust deteriorates
Senate Democrats blocked debate on a defense appropriations bill on the floor earlier this afternoon, which was seen as a test for whether regular individual bipartisan funding bills can gain any traction despite the shutdown, now dragging into its third week.
The bill, which passed out of committee with strong bipartisan support earlier this year, needed 60 votes to advance, but the final vote was 50 to 44. Several Democrats including Jeanne Shaheen voted to advance the bill.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer objected to considering the bill without also voting on the annual labor, health and human services appropriations bill.
“Right now, the only thing that is on the floor is just the defense bill. [John] Thune needs unanimous consent to add anything else to it. We don’t even know if he’ll get that,” Schumer told reporters earlier ahead of the vote.
It’s always been unacceptable to Democrats to do the defense bill without other bills that have so many things that are important to the American people, in terms of healthcare, in terms of housing, in terms of safety.
Senate majority leader John Thune expressed frustration that they couldn’t take that first step and said the optics were bad for the Democrats.
If they want to stop the defense bill, I don’t think it’s very good optics for them. Particularly since this is just getting on it, and they would have multiple opportunities after this to block it if they want to.
“I believe it is critical that the Senate and Congress return to a bipartisan appropriations approach and try to begin rebuilding trust,” Shaheen said in a statement after voting. “This vote would allow us to consider Senate appropriations bills which were passed out of committee with overwhelming bipartisan support.”
The other Democratic senators who voted with Republicans were Catherine Cortez Masto and John Fetterman. Majority leader John Thune changed his vote to “no” so that procedurally he can bring the bill up for consideration again.
Cortez Masto and Fetterman have previously voted for the GOP’s House-passed bill to reopen the government while Shaheen has been at the heart of talks with GOP colleagues about finding a way to end the shutdown.
Kremlin says Putin told Trump supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine would harm peace chances and US-Russia ties
Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump in their phone call today that supplying US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would harm the peace process and damage US-Russia ties, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
As I said earlier, this comes a day before Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump at the White House tomorrow in which he is set to push for more US military support, including the crucial long-range offensive missiles.
Ushakov said the planned new summit between the two presidents will be preceded by a phone call between US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in the coming days.
The Putin-Trump call took place at Russia’s initiative, Ushakov added.
Trump warns Hamas not to kill people in Gaza or ‘we will have no choice but to go in and kill them’
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump has just said:
If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.
It comes after Hamas fighters have been captured on video in recent days ramping up their presence and reasserting the group’s authority by executing members of rival groups on the streets of Gaza.
This is Trump’s clearest indication on the matter yet, after giving mixed messages in recent days, initially saying the violence “didn’t bother me much” as Hamas was clearing up “gangs”. Yesterday he appeared to concede that it could be “gangs plus” when asked if there was a possibility that Hamas was killing innocent civilians.
“They will disarm, and if they don’t do so, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump also said yesterday, though, as with the statement today, he hasn’t specified how he would follow through on his threat.
A reminder that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is heading to the White House tomorrow to push for more US military support, including potential long-range offensive missiles. He will no doubt be nervous by Trump’s positive tone following his call with Putin.
Trump has said he could supply the long-range weapons to Ukraine if Putin fails to come to the negotiating table. In its latest barrage, Russia launched more than 300 drones and 37 missiles to target infrastructure across Ukraine in overnight attacks, Zelenskyy said. Kyiv has ramped up its own attacks on Russian targets, including an oil refinery in the Saratov region today.
Russia has been hitting Ukraine’s energy and power facilities for consecutive winters as the war drags into its fourth year.
In the latest warnings to Russia, Trump said yesterday that Indian PM Narendra Modi had pledged to stop buying oil from Russia, and that the administration would push China to do the same. India has not confirmed any such commitment, though Reuters reported some Indian refiners are preparing to cut Russian oil imports, with expectations of a gradual reduction.
US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said yesterday that Washington would “impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression” unless the war ends.
