Federal prosecutors said Bolton regularly took handwritten notes including information about national defense information and about daily meetings with U.S. intelligence and military officials or with foreign leaders.

He would then send that sensitive and often highly classified information to two family members via texts or an AOL email account. Prosecutors said Bolton shared more than a thousand pages detailing these daily activities.

After Bolton left the Trump administration in 2019, hackers believed to be associated with the Iranian government gained access to the personal email account that he used to send this information — including some of that national defense information, federal prosecutors said.