John Bolton has pleaded not guilty in the Justice Department case accusing him of sharing classified information.

 

Bolton was ordered released from custody after making his appearance before a judge in the third Justice Department case brought in recent weeks against an adversary of the Republican president.

 

Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker was there in the courtroom on Friday.

 

“Inside the courtroom, Bolton did not speak except to answer basic questions from the judge. Now this indictment has a lot of details. For one thing, it accuses him of having shared with his wife and his daughter lots of classified information in the form of diary-like notes about his time in government,” Tucker said.

 

The indictment also states that Bolton’s email was hacked by someone from the Iranian regime, who could have had access to classified information.

 

Bolton has signaled he will argue he is being targeted because of his criticism of the president, describing the charges as part of a Trump “effort to intimidate his opponents.”

 

The case, however, appears to have followed a more conventional path toward indictment than other recent cases against perceived Trump enemies.

 

“It is also worth noting that this case is different than those in the sense that it was inherited by the Trump Justice Department. It had been underway for several years. And this allegation, this inditement, actually is more specific in its allegations than the other two cases,” Tucker said.