John Bolton pleads not guilty
John Bolton has pleaded not guilty to charges of mishandling classified information.
Reuters is reporting that Bolton, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump who has since become one of Trump’s biggest Republican critics, has pleaded not guilty.
The justice department filed federal charges against Bolton in federal court in Maryland on Thursday, accusing him of transmitting and retaining highly classified information under the Espionage Act.
Key events
John Bolton was seen leaving the courthouse, and did not address the press outside.
Overall, he was at the courthouse for several hours this morning. The hearing itself only lasted around 15 minutes, according to CNN.
According to CNN, Bolton is scheduled to be back in court next on 21 November.
Sam Levine
A group of Republican senators accused former special counsel Jack Smith of “serious prosecutorial misconduct” and urged attorney general Pam Bondi to refer him to the justice department office to investigate misconduct amid ongoing anger over Smith’s decision to obtain their phone records as part of his investigation into January 6.
Earlier this month, Senate Republicans released information from the FBI showing Smith’s team had obtained cellphone information from nine congressional Republicans. The information collected didn’t include the content of the calls, but rather whom the Republicans had dialed and for how long (Senator Josh Hawley, one of those whose information was obtained, falsely said at a hearing last week that the phones were “tapped”.)
“Without any sufficient rationale or cause, Jack Smith’s team used a federal grand jury subpoena to obtain the phone records of sitting United States Senators and a Member of the House of Representatives,” Senators Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Tommy Tuberville, Dan Sullivan and representative Mike Kelly wrote. All five were among the lawmakers whose phone information was tracked.
“It is blatantly clear that, by seeking these phone records without our knowledge and consent and without any known legal predicate, the Special Counsel has violated this provision of the Rules of Professional Conduct that is intended to prevent precisely the type of conduct that occurred in this matter,” they added, urging the justice department to also refer Smith for investigation to the Tennessee and New York state legal bars as well.
The other senators whose phone records were pulled were Hawley, Cynthia Lummis, Ron Johnson and Bill Hagerty.
It had long been known that Smith obtained the records of some lawmakers, according to Politico. Smith’s report also noted that his team had consulted the justice department manual and consulted with the public integrity section.
“The Office consulted the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section (PIN), which oversees the investigation and prosecution of federal crimes affecting government integrity, pursuant to Justice Manual requirements pertaining to the service of subpoenas and other process on Members of Congress, the use of election fraud charges, and the Department’s Election Year Sensitivities Policy, a longstanding Department policy regarding the conduct of sensitive investigations during an election year,” Smith wrote in his final report.
The request from Republicans comes as Trump has deployed the justice department to target political enemies and has secured indictments against former FBI director Jim Comey, New York attorney general Letitia James, and former national security adviserJohn Bolton. Lawyers and FBI agents who worked on Smith’s investigation have also been fired.
The US federal court system will begin scaling back non-essential operations and furloughing some employees on Monday, after exhausting the funds it had left to sustain operations during the federal government shutdown, according to reports.
The announcement was in an internal memo obtained and reviewed by Reuters and reported on Friday.
Reuters reports that the announcement means the federal judiciary will, for the first time in nearly three decades, be forced to send some of its more than 33,000 employees home, while others will be required to work without pay.
Both chambers of Congress are not in session today, as the government shutdown enters day 17.
The US military is reportedly holding two survivors onboard a navy ship after rescuing them following a US strike on Thursday on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean that killed two others, three sources told Reuters on Friday.
Thursday’s strike is believed to be the first of such strikes in which there were survivors, a US official told Reuters.
Before Thursday’s operation, US military strikes against suspected drug boats had killed at least 27 people. The strikes have raised alarms among some legal experts and Democratic lawmakers, who have questioned the legality of the attacks.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has informed Congress that the strikes are part of a US war on narcoterrorism. Administration officials have said that the US is now in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
According to the New York Times, the judge who presided over Bolton’s court appearance set two conditions to Bolton’s release: he must hand over his passport to his lawyer, and his travel is limited to the continental United States.
John Bolton pleads not guilty
John Bolton has pleaded not guilty to charges of mishandling classified information.
Reuters is reporting that Bolton, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump who has since become one of Trump’s biggest Republican critics, has pleaded not guilty.
The justice department filed federal charges against Bolton in federal court in Maryland on Thursday, accusing him of transmitting and retaining highly classified information under the Espionage Act.
Alice Speri
Two more schools have turned down an offer by President Trump to join a “compact” that would give them preferential access to federal funds in exchange for agreeing to a series of demands aligned with the administration’s ideological priorities.
On Thursday, the University of Southern California and University of Pennsylvania both declined to join the compact.
“We are concerned that even though the Compact would be voluntary, tying research benefits to it would, over time, undermine the same values of free inquiry and academic excellence that the Compact seeks to promote,” USC’s interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a statement.
Penn’s president J. Larry Jameson said: “At Penn, we are committed to merit-based achievement and accountability.”
The universities joined Brown University, which declined the president’s offer on Wednesday, and MIT, the first to turn it down last week. Since then, the administration has extended the proposal beyond the nine schools it had originally offered it to, to all universities in the country. So far, there have been no takers, and protests have mounted on campuses across the country calling on universities’ leaders to reject it.
“The Trump compact is not just wrong — like many of the Trump administration’s attacks, it is unconstitutional,” American Association of University Professors’ president Todd Wolfson said in a statement. “It violates the First Amendment by forcing universities to surrender their rights of free speech and academic freedom in exchange for federal funds.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board has weighed in on John Bolton’s indictment.
“Opposing Donald Trump is a perilous business, but working for him can be equally as dangerous,” the board wrote. “That’s one lesson from Thursday’s indictment of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton for mishandling classified documents.”
The editorial states that “there’s little doubt that the underlying motivation for this prosecution is retribution,” noting that “the President has targeted Mr. Bolton at least since 2020 when Mr. Trump called for his prosecution after Mr. Bolton wrote his book.”
“Mr Bolton will get his day in court, and we look forward to his defense” the board added.
“If Mr. Bolton had praised Mr. Trump in his book, it’s safe to say he wouldn’t have been indicted,” they said.
John Bolton’s court proceeding is scheduled to take place at the federal courthouse in Maryland 11am ET, according to CNN.
At the hearing, CNN reports that Bolton will be read the charges he is facing and informed of his rights.
The judge may also decide whether he will be detained or set conditions of his release while awaiting his next court date, the outlet notes.
At the news conference with Republican House leaders, Representative Mike Rogers, who chairs the House armed services committee, said that they were just informed on Thursday night that the group that handles and manages “our nuclear stockpile, that the carryover funding they’ve been using is about to run out” as a result of the federal shutdown.
“They will have to lay off 80% of their employees, these are not employees that you want to go home,” Rogers said. “They’re managing and handling a very important strategic asset for us, they need to be at work and being paid.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is hosting a news conference with other GOP leaders as the federal government shutdown enters its 17th day.
Johnson blamed Democrats for the impasse and condemned the upcoming No Kings protests, referring to them as the “hate America rally”.
“Tomorrow, this rally is not about freedom, it’s about the opposite” Johnson said, before accusing Democrats of using the moment to create a “spectacle”.
Earlier this morning, House minority leader Democrat Hakeem Jeffries sharply rejected Republican claims that the protests across the country planned for this weekend are expressing hate and anti-American.
“Showing up to express dissent against an out-of-control administration” is as “American as motherhood, baseball and apple pie,” Jeffries said.
“What’s hateful is what happened on January 6. That was a hate America rally sponsored by Donald Trump and his sycophants.”
Trump to meet with China’s Xi Jinping in South Korea in two weeks
Donald Trump has said he plans to meet with China’s president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea in two weeks.
In an interview excerpt with Fox News, scheduled to air in full on Sunday, Trump said that the pair will have a separate meeting. “ I think we’re going to be fine with China, but we have to have a fair deal,” he said, as the US moves to raise tariffs in response to Beijing’s decision to tighten exports of rare earth minerals.
Earlier this month, Trump said that he saw little point in meeting with the Chinese leader amid the ongoing trade war.
Jeffries rebukes Republican claims that No Kings protests are anti-American
Speaking on day 17 of the shutdown, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a sharp rebuke of claims by Republican lawmakers that the No Kings protests across the country this weekend are expressing hate and are likely to be violent.
“Showing up to express dissent against an out-of-control administration, that’s as American as motherhood, baseball and apple pie,” Jeffries said. “What’s hateful is what happened on January 6. That was a hate America rally sponsored by Donald Trump and his sycophants.”
John Bolton pictured arriving at courthouse to surrender on criminal charges
We’re getting more images of John Bolton arriving at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he surrendered today on charges of mishandled classified information.
Lawmakers continue to push Johnson to swear in Arizona representative-elect
Per my earlier post about the House being out today, it’s important to note that they will hold what’s known as a pro forma session – a constitutional requirement that requires the House hold a procedural session, short of calling an actual recess. This doesn’t require them to do any legislative work.
However, more lawmakers are pushing for the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to use the session to swear in Adelita Grijalva, the Democratic representative-elect from Arizona who won her special election weeks ago, and whose win has been certified by Arizona’s attorney general Kris Mayes.
On Thursday, House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, sent a letter to Johnson urging him to take action during today’s session.
Johnson has said that he will ensure Grijalva is officially sworn in when they House is officially back at work (read: when the shutdown is over). Democrats have accused him of slow rolling the process intentionally, since Grijalva will be the 218th signature needed on a discharge petition to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files. They claim the move is tactical and hypocritical, considering Johnson moved to quickly swear in two Republican congressmen from Florida during a pro forma session earlier this year.
Former Trump adviser turned adversary, John Bolton, surrenders at federal courthouse following criminal charges
John Bolton, the former ally and national security adviser to Donald Trump during his first administration, has arrived at a federal courthouse in Maryland to surrender, following several criminal charges of transmitting and retaining highly classified information under the Espionage Act.
House and Senate both out as shutdown enters day 17
Both chambers of Congress are not in session today, as the government shutdown enters day 17.
We’ll hear from the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, at 9:30am, and then Republican House speaker Mike Johnson at 10am ET. Both parties continue to blame the other for the lapse in funding, and the failure to pass a stopgap bill to reopen the government.
Trump to host Zelenskyy at the White House
Donald Trump will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy today at 1pm ET, and we’ll bring you the latest lines as the two leaders meet at the White House for the third time this year. Currently, their bilateral lunch meeting is closed to the press, but as often happens, it may open up.
Zelenksyy’s last meeting in Washington, in August, was an ostensible success, particularly when compared to the disastrous back and forth in February, when the president essentially said that the Ukrainian leader was ungrateful.
Today, Zelenskyy is expected to ask for US-made Tomahawk missiles, and the subject of Trump’s yet-to-be scheduled meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin is sure to come up.
Later, Trump will leave the White House for Palm Beach.
