CNN’s Elie Honig Argues Bolton Allegations ‘More Serious’ Than Those Against Trump

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig broke down the federal charges against former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton on Thursday and argued that his alleged conduct represents “more serious” violations than what President Donald Trump did with classified information.

“Legal analyst Elie Honig. Elie, now that we’ve seen this indictment, how serious do these charges seem to you?” anchor Jake Tapper asked.

“Well, Jake, if prosecutors can prove these charges, that’s always the big if, then John Bolton’s conduct, to me, is more serious, certainly than we saw in the investigations of Hillary Clinton, of Mike Pence, of Joe Biden, and even more serious than the conduct that got Donald Trump indicted. Let me tell you why,” Honig replied, adding:

First of all, John Bolton didn’t just mishandle this information. He didn’t keep it in a box in a garage or even scattered around a resort. He actively disseminated it to two people, according to the indictment, two family members who were outsiders who had no security clearance over AOL, which by the way was hacked. Second of all, we’re talking about the highest level security.

The indictment talks about information relating to military attack plans, to missile launches, to foreign leaders, to sensitive sources and methods. And third of all, Bolton’s team was not exactly forthcoming about this. There came a point where they learned his email had been hacked by Iran. They notified the FBI but they omitted the fact that John Bolton was using that account to communicate with these outsiders. So I think if DOJ can prove this, this is big, big trouble for John Bolton.

Bolton was indicted on 18 charges, reported CNN earlier in the day, including eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information.

Watch the full clip above.