John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, was indicted on Thursday on charges of retaining and transmitting national defence information, marking the third time in recent weeks the US Justice Department has secured criminal charges against one of the Republican president’s critics.

Bolton’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. His lawyer had previously denied that Bolton engaged in wrongdoing.

The indictment, according to court records, comes after court documents made public last month revealed that Bolton was under federal investigation for potential mishandling of classified information.

Trump, who campaigned for the presidency on a vow of retribution after facing a slew of legal woes once his first term in the White House ended in 2021, has dispensed with decades-long norms designed to insulate federal law enforcement from political pressures.

In recent months, he has actively pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department to bring charges against his perceived adversaries, even driving out a prosecutor he deemed to be moving too slowly in doing so.

Bolton served as US ambassador to the United Nations as well as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term before emerging as one of the president’s most vocal critics. He described Trump as unfit to be president in a memoir he released last year.