Politics
Trump critic John Bolton indicted for mishandling classified info
- Trump’s former adviser has criticised Republican president.
- Bolton’s lawyer denies wrongdoing.
- Two other Trump foes indicted in recent weeks.
WASHINGTON: 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 “unauthorised 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 jeopardises 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 weaponising 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 favourable 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.
- Cairo “studying” request for Sisi to join board, says FM.
- Canadian PM intends to accept Trump’s invitation: aide.
- Argentine president says it will be an ‘honour’ to join initiative.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” for postwar Gaza began to take shape Saturday, with the leaders of Egypt, Turkey, Argentina and Canada asked to join.
The announcements from those leaders came after the US president named his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and senior negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to the panel.
Trump had already declared himself the chair of the body, as he promotes a controversial vision of economic development in the Palestinian territory, which lies in rubble after two-plus years of relentless Israeli bombardment.
The moves came after a Palestinian committee of technocrats meant to govern Gaza held its first meeting in Cairo which was attended by Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who has partnered with Witkoff for months on the issue.
In Canada, a senior aide to Prime Minister Mark Carney said he intended to accept Trump’s invitation, while in Turkey, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had been asked to become a “founding member” of the board.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Cairo was “studying” a request for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to join.
Sharing an image of the invitation letter, Argentine President Javier Milei wrote on X that it would be “an honour” to participate in the initiative.
In a statement sent to AFP, Blair said: “I thank President Trump for his leadership in establishing the Board of Peace and am honoured to be appointed to its Executive Board.”
Blair is a controversial figure in the Middle East because of his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Trump himself said last year that he wanted to make sure Blair was an “acceptable choice to everybody.”
Blair spent years focused on the Israeli-Palestinian issue as representative of the “Middle East Quartet” – the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia – after leaving Downing Street in 2007.
The White House said the Board of Peace will take on issues such as “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding and capital mobilisation.”
The other members of the board so far are World Bank President Ajay Banga, an Indian-born American businessman; billionaire US financier Marc Rowan; and Robert Gabriel, a loyal Trump aide who serves on the US National Security Council.
Trump has created a second “Gaza executive board” that appears designed to have a more advisory role.
It was not immediately clear which world leaders were asked to be on each board.
The White House, which said Friday that additional members would be named to both entities, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Israel strikes
Washington has said the Gaza plan had gone on to a second phase – from implementing the ceasefire to disarming Hamas, whose October 2023 attack on Israel prompted the massive Israeli offensive.
On Friday, Trump named US Major General Jasper Jeffers to head the International Stabilization Force, which will be tasked with providing security in Gaza and training a new police force to succeed Hamas.
Jeffers, from special operations in US Central Command, in late 2024 was put in charge of monitoring a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, which has continued periodic strikes aimed at Hezbollah.
Gaza native and former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath was earlier tapped to head the governing committee.
Trump, a real estate developer, has previously mused about turning devastated Gaza into a Riviera-style area of resorts, although he has backed away from calls to forcibly displace the population.
- Private carrier admits misjudgement, planning gaps.
- Regulator orders IndiGo to relieve senior office bearers.
- Operational meltdown linked to new policy of pilot rest.
India’s civil aviation regulator on Saturday imposed a fine of $2.45 million on IndiGo, the country’s biggest airline, for poor roster planning that led to large-scale flight cancellations in December.
Airports across India were thrown into disarray late last year, with the private carrier admitting “misjudgement and planning gaps” in adapting to a new policy of pilot rest.
Over 4,000 mostly domestic flights were either cancelled or delayed for over a week across the country, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers.
The operational meltdown came even though IndiGo had two years to prepare for the new rules aimed at giving pilots more rest periods in between flights to enhance passenger safety.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it was levying the penalty for several lapses, including “failure to strike (a) balance between commercial imperatives and crew members’ ability to work effectively”.
The regulator ordered IndiGo to relieve its senior vice president of its operations control centre of his responsibilities, according to a statement released on Saturday.
It also issued warnings to senior officials at the company, including CEO Pieter Elbers “for inadequate overall oversight of flight operations and crisis management”.
There was no immediate response from IndiGo to the fine.
IndiGo, which commands 60% of India’s domestic market, operates more than 2,000 flights a day.
The crisis was one of the biggest challenges faced by the no-frills airline that has built its reputation on punctuality.
India is one of the world’s fastest growing aviation markets. In November 2024, IndiGo reached a daily level of 500,000 passengers for the first time.
- Protesters chant, “Greenland is not for sale.”
- Over “20,000 people” attend protest in Copenhagen.
- Trump says Greenland vital to US security.
COPENHAGEN: Protesters in Denmark and Greenland demonstrated on Saturday against President Donald Trump’s demand that the Arctic island be ceded to the US and called for it to be left to determine its own future.
Trump says Greenland is vital to US security because of its strategic location and large mineraldeposits, and has not ruled out using force to take it. European nations this week sent military personnel to the island at Denmark’s request.
In Copenhagen, demonstrators chanted “Greenland is not for sale” and held up slogans such as “No means No” and “Hands off Greenland” alongside the territory’s red-and-white flag as they marched to the US embassy.
Some wore red baseball caps resembling the “Make America Great Again” caps of Trump supporters, but with the slogan “Make America Go Away”.
In Greenland’s capital Nuuk, hundreds of protesters led by Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen carried flags and similar banners as they headed for the US consulate.
They passed a newly built block where Washington plans to move its consulate – currently a red wooden building with four staff.
Organisers estimated over 20,000 people attended the protest in Copenhagen – akin to the entire population of Nuuk – though police did not provide an official figure. Other protests were held across Denmark.
“I am very grateful for the huge support we as Greenlanders receive … we are also sending a message to the world that you all must wake up,” said Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, an organisation for Greenlanders in Denmark.
Trump triggers diplomatic rift
Trump’s repeated statements about the island have triggered a diplomatic crisis between the US and Denmark, both founding members of the NATO military alliance, and have been widely condemned in Europe.
The territory of 57,000 people, governed for centuries from Copenhagen, has carved out significant autonomy since 1979 but remains part of Denmark, which controls defence and foreign policy, and funds much of the administration.
Some 17,000 Greenlanders live in Denmark, according to Danish authorities.
All five parties elected to Greenland’s parliament ultimately favour independence, but they disagree on the timing and have recently said they would rather remain part of Denmark than join the US
Only 17% of Americans approve of Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland, and large majorities of Democrats and Republicans oppose using military force to annex it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Trump called the poll “fake”.
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