U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., points to text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an annual worldwide threats assessment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. The hearing held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence addressed top aides inadvertently including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic magazine, on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated official policy when he used the publicly available Signal app to message about military plans from his personal cell phone, including imminent bombings in Yemen, according to a report released Thursday by the Pentagon’s own watchdog. 

The Defense Department Inspector General’s 84-page report concluded Hegseth sent information about the “strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory over an unapproved, unsecure network approximately 2 to 4 hours before the execution of those strikes.” 

“Although the Secretary wrote in his July 25 statement to the DoD OIG that ‘there were no details that would endanger our troops or the mission,’ if this information had fallen into the hands of U.S. adversaries, Houthi forces might have been able to counter U.S. forces or reposition personnel and assets to avoid planned U.S. strikes,” the report states. “Even though these events did not ultimately occur, the Secretary’s actions created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots.”

Members of Congress from both political parties requested the Defense Department Inspector General look into Hegseth’s use of Signal after a journalist at The Atlantic was inadvertently added to a group chat of national security officials planning the bombing in Yemen. Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg later published a series of stories detailing the messages. 

Acting Defense Department Inspector General Steven A. Stebbins released a memo in April announcing he had opened an investigation into the matter. 

GOP wants more Pentagon tech, Dems want Hegseth gone

Members of Congress’ reaction to the report was mixed, with Republicans suggesting more technology is needed for the Pentagon, while Democrats called for Hegseth to resign. 

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., issued a statement saying the report shows Hegseth “acted within his authority to communicate the information in question to other cabinet level officials.” 

“It is also clear to me that our senior leaders need more tools available to them to communicate classified information in real time and a variety of environments,” Wicker added. “I think we have some work to do in providing those tools to our national security leaders.”

Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement the report confirms “that Secretary Hegseth violated military regulations and continues to show reckless disregard for the safety of American servicemembers.”

“For months, Secretary Hegseth has attempted to mislead Congress and the American people, claiming repeatedly that no classified information was involved,” Reed said. “The Inspector General has now definitively cast doubt on those false assurances.”

Reed added that Hegseth should “explain himself to Congress, the public, and the servicemembers he leads. The men and women of our armed forces deserve leadership they can trust with their lives.”

Hegseth refuses to give cell phone to investigators

The Inspector General report said Hegseth declined to sit for an interview with the Defense Department’s oversight agency, that he refused to hand over his personal cell phone to investigators and that he didn’t retain some of the messages in accordance with federal recordkeeping requirements. 

Officials working for Hegseth shared copies of the Signal chat with the inspector general, but those were incomplete since the app’s auto-delete feature was on at the time. Signal users can adjust that for different lengths of time or turn it off completely.

Hegseth was in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, in his home the morning and early afternoon of March 15 to monitor “the operation against the Houthis,” according to the report. 

Two aides who were with Hegseth at the time told investigators he used “secure, classified” systems to communicate with United States Central Command officials “during the planning and execution of the strikes against Houthi targets that day and reviewed information related to the strikes.” 

“In the SCIF, the Secretary had access to multiple means of secure communication that allowed him to provide the necessary operational details and updates to non-DoD government officials on the Signal group chat,” the report states. 

The group chat about the Yemen bombing that accidentally included a journalist wasn’t the only one Hegseth used to communicate about official Pentagon business from his personal phone. 

Eight officials within the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Chief Information Officer told investigators that Hegseth created “multiple Signal group chats in which the Secretary and others allegedly discussed official DoD business and nonpublic information.” 

“One of the officials we spoke with stated that the Secretary posted the same sensitive operational information concerning the Houthi attack plans on the ‘Defense Team Huddle’ group chat,” the report states, later adding Hegseth declined to provide any information about that chat. 

The Inspector General opted not to make any recommendations about the use of Signal in the report, since “records management issues arising from the use of Signal and other commercially available messaging applications are a DoD-wide issue.”

A previous inspector general report also called on the department to “improve training for DoD senior officials on compliance with records retention laws and policies.”

Alabama’s Rogers says mission not compromised

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., wrote in a statement that it is “important to remember that this was a successful operation that took out a dangerous target with no harm to U.S. troops. It’s clear that the discussion on Signal didn’t compromise the mission.”

“During the past few administrations, the use of Signal for communication between government officials has grown, so I appreciate the comprehensive work by the IG to develop recommendations on how to improve and secure communications,” Rogers said. “I encourage the Administration to follow these recommendations, and I look forward to discussions with the Pentagon on how to implement them.”

House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., called the report “a damning review of an incompetent secretary of defense who is profoundly incapable of the job and clearly has no respect for or comprehension of what is required to safeguard our service members.”

“It confirms staggering violations of policy – namely that unsecured platforms were used by the secretary to boast about sensitive operational details that could have jeopardized both the mission and, more importantly, the lives of American service members tasked with carrying out Operation Rough Rider,” Smith said.

‘A fireable offense for anyone else in the Department of Defense’

Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee ranking member Chris Coons, D-Del., said in a statement the report “concluded that Secretary Hegseth violated DOD procedure and put service members’ lives at risk with his reckless mishandling of sensitive information.” 

“In March, I led a group of senators in pressing the Trump administration to investigate this blatant misconduct. Any service member who acted with such disregard for our national security would be dismissed, at the very least,” Coons said. “Our nation’s highest ranking defense official should not be held to a lower standard than the men and women he oversees. For the good of our nation, I once again call on Secretary Hegseth to resign.”

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ranking member Jim Himes, D-Conn., said in a statement the report “confirms what I feared when this Signal thread became public: We are fortunate that the mission was not compromised and that servicemembers were not put at needless risk thanks to Secretary Hegseth’s reckless treatment of classified information.”

“Pete Hegseth’s behavior and lack of judgment would be a fireable offense for anyone else in the Department of Defense,” Himes said. “What’s more, his refusal to sit for an interview with the Inspector General or submit his device for examination is yet another example of his failure to take responsibility for his actions.”

In early November, the South Carolina Department of Public Health opened a pop-up mobile vaccine clinic in a library parking lot in Boiling Springs. Dozens of people in South Carolina’s Upstate region have been diagnosed with measles this fall. (Photo by Lauren Sausser/KFF Health News)

This article first appeared on KFF Health News.

BOILING SPRINGS, S.C. — Near the back corner of the local library’s parking lot, largely out of view from the main road, the South Carolina Department of Public Health opened a pop-up clinic in early November, offering free measles vaccines to adults and children.

Spartanburg County, in South Carolina’s Upstate region, has been fighting a measles outbreak since early October, with more than 50 cases identified. Health officials have encouraged people who are unvaccinated to get a shot by visiting its mobile vaccine clinic at any of its several stops throughout the county.

But on a Monday afternoon in Boiling Springs, only one person showed up.

“It’s progress. That progress is slow,” Linda Bell, the state epidemiologist with the Department of Public Health, said during a recent press briefing. “We had hoped to see a more robust uptake than that in our mobile health units.”

As South Carolina tries to contain its measles outbreak, public health officials across the nation are concerned that the highly contagious virus is making a major comeback. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tallied more than 1,700 measles cases and 45 outbreaks in 2025. The largest started in Texas, where hundreds of people were infected and two children died.

For the first time in more than two decades, the United States is poised to lose its measles elimination status, a designation indicating that outbreaks are rare and rapidly contained.

South Carolina’s measles outbreak isn’t yet as large as those in other states, such as New Mexico, Arizona and Kansas. But it shows how a confluence of larger national trends — including historically low vaccination rates, skepticism fueled by the pandemic, misinformation and “health freedom” ideologies promoted by conservative politicians — have put some communities at risk for the reemergence of a preventable, potentially deadly virus.

“Everyone talks about it being the canary in the coal mine because it’s the most contagious infectious disease out there,” said Josh Michaud, associate director for global and public health policy at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. “The logic is indisputable that we’re likely to see more outbreaks.”

Schools and ‘small brush fires’

Spartanburg’s vaccination rate is among the lowest of South Carolina’s 46 counties. And that was true “even before COVID,” said Chris Lombardozzi, a senior vice president with the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System.

Nearly 6,000 children in Spartanburg County schools last year — 10% of the total enrollment — either received an exemption allowing them to forgo required vaccinations or did not meet vaccine requirements, according to data published by the state.

Lombardozzi said the county’s low vaccination rate is tied to misinformation not only published on social media but also spread by “a variety of nonmedical leaders over the years.”

The pandemic made things worse. Michaud said that fear and misinformation surrounding COVID-19 vaccines “threw gasoline on the fire of people’s vaccine skepticism.” In some cases, that skepticism transferred to childhood vaccines, which historically have been less controversial, he said.

This made communities like Spartanburg County with low vaccination rates more vulnerable. “Which is why we’re seeing constant, small brush fires of measles outbreaks,” Michaud said.

In Spartanburg, the overall percentage of students with required immunizations fell from 95.1% to 90% between the 2020-21 and 2024-25 academic years. Public health officials say a minimum of 95% is required to prevent significant spread of measles.

Children who attend public and private schools in South Carolina are required to show that they’ve received some vaccinations, including the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, but religious exemptions are relatively easy to obtain. The exemption form must be notarized, but it does not require a doctor’s note or any disclosure about the family’s religious beliefs.

The number of students in South Carolina who have been granted religious exemptions has increased dramatically over the past decade. That’s particularly true in the Upstate region, where religious exemptions have increased sixfold from a decade ago. During the 2013-14 school year, 2,044 students in the Upstate were granted a religious exemption to the vaccine requirements, according to data published by The Post and Courier. By fall 2024, that number had jumped to more than 13,000.

Some schools are more exposed than others. The beginning of the South Carolina outbreak was largely linked to one public charter school, Global Academy of South Carolina, where only 17% of the 605 students enrolled during the 2024-25 school year provided documentation showing they had received their required vaccinations, according to data published by the Department of Public Health.

No one from Global Academy responded to interview requests.

‘Health freedom’

In April, after visiting a Texas family whose daughter had died from measles, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on social media that the “most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.” He made a similar statement during an interview on “Dr. Phil” later that month.

But these endorsements stand at odds with other statements Kennedy has made that cast doubt on vaccine safety and have falsely linked vaccines with autism. The CDC, under his authority, now claims such links “have been ignored by health authorities.”

“What would I do if I could go back in time and I could avoid giving my children the vaccines that I gave them?” he said on a podcast in 2020. “I would do anything for that. I would pay anything to be able to do that.”

Throughout 2025, he has made other misleading or unsupported statements. During a congressional hearing in September, Kennedy defended his past claims that he was not anti-vaccine but affirmed his stated position that no vaccines are safe or effective.

Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, told KFF Health News that Kennedy is “pro-safety, pro-transparency and pro-accountability.” Hilliard said HHS is working with “state and local partners in South Carolina” and in other states to provide support during the measles outbreaks.

Meanwhile, Kennedy has frequently championed the idea of health freedom, or freedom of choice, regarding vaccines, a talking point that has taken root among Republicans.

That has had a “chilling effect all the way down through state and local lawmakers,” Michaud said, making some leaders hesitant to talk about the threat that the ongoing measles outbreaks poses or the effectiveness and safety of the MMR vaccine.

Brandon Charochak, a spokesperson for South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, said the governor was not available to be interviewed for this article but referenced McMaster’s comment from October that measles “is a dangerous disease, but in terms of diseases, it’s not one that we should panic about.”

On a separate occasion that month, the Republican governor said he does not support vaccine mandates. “We’re not going to have mandates,” he said, “and I think we are responding properly.”

Even though the South Carolina Department of Public Health has repeatedly encouraged measles vaccines, the push has been notably quieter than the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine outreach efforts.

In 2021, for example, the agency partnered with breweries throughout the state for a campaign called “Shot and a Chaser,” which rewarded people who got a COVID-19 vaccine with a free beer or soda. By contrast, the pop-up measles vaccine clinic at the Boiling Springs Library featured no flashy signage, no freebies, and wasn’t visible from the library’s main entrance.

Edward Simmer, interim director of the Department of Public Health, would not speak to KFF Health News about the measles outbreak. During a legislative hearing in April, Republican state lawmakers voted against his permanent confirmation because of his past support for COVID-19 vaccines and masking. One lawmaker specifically criticized the agency during that hearing for the Shot and a Chaser campaign.

Public health officials in other states also have been blocked from new roles because of their COVID-19 response. In Missouri, where MMR vaccine rates have declined among kindergartners since 2020 and measles cases have been reported this year, Republican lawmakers rejected a public health director in 2022 after vaccine opponents protested his appointment.

In South Carolina, Simmer, lacking lawmakers’ confirmation, leads the public health agency in an interim capacity.

South Carolina Sen. Tom Davis of Beaufort was the only Republican on the Senate Medical Affairs Committee who voted to confirm Simmer in April. He told KFF Health News that his Republican colleagues raised valid questions about Simmer’s past support for COVID-19 vaccines.

But, Davis said, it would be “tremendously unfortunate and not beneficial from a public health perspective” if the Republican Party just took a stance against vaccines “as a matter of policy.”

The Department of Public Health had administered 44 doses of the MMR vaccine through its mobile health unit from October to mid-November. The last mobile vaccine clinic was scheduled for Nov. 24. But health officials are encouraged that patients are seeking vaccines elsewhere. The agency’s tracking system shows that providers across Spartanburg County administered more than twice as many measles vaccines in October as they did a year ago.

As of mid-November, more than 130 people remained in quarantine, most of them students at local elementary and middle schools. Cases have also been linked to a church and Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport.

“We’re reminding people that travel for the upcoming holidays increases the risk of exposures greatly,” said Bell, the state epidemiologist. “Due to that risk, we’re encouraging people to consider getting vaccinated now.”

KFF Health News correspondent Amy Maxmen contributed to this report. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

A California Highway Patrol officer talks to a driver during a traffic stop in October. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants access to state driver’s license data as it builds a powerful citizenship verification program. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Trump administration wants access to state driver’s license data on millions of U.S. residents as it builds a powerful citizenship verification program amid its clampdown on voter fraud and illegal immigration.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeks access to an obscure computer network used by law enforcement agencies, according to a federal notice, potentially allowing officials to bypass negotiating with states for the records.

The information would then be plugged into a Homeland Security program known as SAVE that Trump officials have deployed to search for rare instances of alleged noncitizen voters and to verify citizenship. The plan comes as the Trump administration demands states share copies of their voter files that include sensitive personal data that also is being plugged into SAVE; it is suing some states that refuse.

Trump officials tout the SAVE program as a boost for election integrity. But critics of the program warn the federal government is constructing a massive, centralized information source on Americans. They fear President Donald Trump or a future president could use the tool to surveil residents or target political enemies.

“What this SAVE database expansion will do is serve as a central pillar to build dossiers on all of us,” said Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

At the same time, Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, conducted nearly 900,000 searches for state driver’s license and other motor vehicle data over the past year using the same data-sharing network that Homeland Security wants to link to SAVE, according to information provided to Congress. The network is called Nlets — formerly the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, now known as the International Justice and Public Safety Network.

Dozens of congressional Democrats in mid-November warned Democratic governors that Nlets makes driver’s license data available to ICE, including from states that restrict cooperation with the agency. While ICE, a Homeland Security agency, has long had access to Nlets, some Democrats are voicing renewed alarm amid Trump’s sweeping deportation campaign.

At least five states — Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Washington — have blocked Nlets’ ability to share their driver’s license records with ICE, according to the Nov. 12 letter from 40 Democratic lawmakers. Oregon also is taking steps to block access.

In Colorado, state Sen. Julie Gonzales said she is willing to advance bills to block the Nlets data sharing. Gonzales, a Democrat who chairs the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee, has previously sponsored legislation to limit what personal information is shared with the federal government for immigration enforcement.

“It is like playing Whac-A-Mole, but the Constitution applies to ICE, too,” Gonzales said.

The recent developments underscore the ongoing struggle between Democratic states and the Trump administration over how much access Homeland Security should have to their residents’ personal data. For their part, some Republican state officials have voiced support for the administration’s moves and want to aid the search for noncitizen voters and individuals in the country illegally.

Data and privacy experts told Stateline the current moment could lead to more centralization of personal data by the federal government and an eroding expectation of privacy when it comes to driver’s license information. The federal government is for the first time essentially building a U.S. citizenship database, they said.

Homeland Security is proposing to take Nlets outside its intended use, said John Davisson, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy group that argues privacy is a fundamental right.

Nlets is a nonprofit organization that facilitates data sharing among law enforcement agencies across state lines. At a basic level, Nlets is the system that allows police officers to quickly look up the driver’s license information of out-of-state motorists they pull over.

States decide what information to make available through Nlets, and which agencies can access it. Each state has an Nlets member, typically that state’s highway patrol or equivalent agency. Several federal law enforcement agencies also are members.

“It appears that DHS is eyeing it for something quite different, for mass extraction of driver’s license information that would be far beyond the sort of targeted enforcement purposes of a system like Nlets,” Davisson said.

Driver data idea floated in May

Homeland Security’s SAVE program — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. But it can now scan state voter rolls for alleged noncitizen voters.

In the past, SAVE could search only one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches, allowing officials to potentially scan through information on millions of registered voters. Federal officials in May connected the program to Social Security data; linking driver’s license data through Nlets would provide an additional mountain of data on U.S. residents.

The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan group that advocates for voting rights, filed a federal lawsuit in September against Homeland Security over the transformation of SAVE. In its complaint, the organization accused the department of ignoring federal law to create comprehensive databases of American citizens’ data.

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, last week declined to temporarily block SAVE’s overhaul while the lawsuit proceeds. But Sooknanan wrote in an opinion that based on the current record, “the Court is troubled by the recent changes to SAVE and doubts the lawfulness of the Government’s actions.”

Homeland Security publicly confirmed it wants to connect Nlets to SAVE in an Oct. 31 Federal Register notice. The notice said driver’s licenses are the most widely used form of identification, and by working with states and national agencies, including Nlets, “SAVE will use driver’s license and state identification card numbers to check and confirm identity information.”

The agency also privately floated its interest in Nlets months earlier.

According to minutes of a May virtual meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State Elections Committee, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) official Brian Broderick told the group that his agency — the Homeland Security agency that administers SAVE — was seeking “to avoid having to connect to 50 state databases” and wanted a “simpler solution,” such as Nlets.

The minutes were contained in records from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office obtained by American Oversight, a nonpartisan transparency group that frequently files records requests. Mother Jones magazine first reported on the records.

Nlets and the Texas Secretary of State’s Office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

On Friday, National Association of Secretaries of State spokesperson Brittany Hamilton wrote in an email to Stateline that at that time, “we have not received specific updates from USCIS on this aspect of driver’s license data potential usage.”

In a statement, USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser encouraged all federal, state and local agencies to use SAVE.

“USCIS remains dedicated to eliminating barriers to securing the nation’s electoral process. By allowing states to efficiently verify voter eligibility, we are reinforcing the principle that America’s elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens,” Tragesser wrote.

State restrictions flawed, lawmakers say

Some Democrats are separately pushing to limit ICE’s access to driver’s license data through Nlets. The Nov. 12 congressional letter warned that while some states have restrictions on data sharing with immigration authorities, the limits are often ineffective because of major flaws.

State limits sometimes apply only to state motor vehicle agencies, which don’t connect to Nlets — and often don’t apply to state police agencies that do connect, the letter said. And even though state restrictions target data-sharing for immigration enforcement, Nlets doesn’t indicate the purpose of a request.

“Because of the technical complexity of Nlets’ system, few state government officials understand how their state is sharing their residents’ data with federal and out-of-state agencies,” wrote U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York and 38 other Democrats.

Homeland Security didn’t address Stateline’s questions about ICE’s access to state driver’s license data through Nlets.

Advocates for immigrants have long raised concerns about ICE access to state driver’s license data through Nlets. Nineteen states allow residents to obtain driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status, according to the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant advocacy group. Those driver’s license records represent a wealth of information on noncitizens.

While ICE can’t use Nlets to obtain records of all noncitizens issued licenses, the agency can use the search tool to obtain a variety of information on individuals, such as date of birth, sex, address and Social Security number, according to the law center. Sometimes a photo is also available — a particular concern for immigrants and their advocates amid reports that ICE has deployed facial recognition tools in the field.

“I think that for many years, folks around the country that are concerned about privacy, that are concerned about immigrants, have been trying to sound the alarm about this issue,” said Matthew Lopas, director of state advocacy and technical assistance at the National Immigration Law Center.

Stateline contacted all 50 state governors to ask about Nlets. Forty-one offices didn’t respond and most others provided high-level statements or referred questions to other agencies.

But Maryland indicated it was taking “proactive measures” to ensure that federal agencies’ access to its data through Nlets complies with state and federal law. A 2021 state law limits the sharing of driver’s license data with federal immigration authorities.

Maryland “is working with Nlets to ensure that Marylanders’ data is not misused for civil immigration enforcement absent a valid judicial warrant, and we intend to share more information on that effort as we are able,” Rhyan Lake, a spokesperson for Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, said in a statement to Stateline.

The South Dakota Department of Public Safety, which is overseen by Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden, cautioned against limiting data-sharing among law enforcement. Records obtained through Nlets include data on wanted individuals and other information that can help identify potential threats to officers and agents, the department said in a statement provided by Director of Communications Brad Reiners.

“We reject the concerns outlined in the [Democratic lawmakers’] letter and remain deeply concerned about the potentially dangerous consequences of limiting access to this information,” the statement says.

In Oregon, state officials plan to cut off ICE’s Nlets access to its driver’s license data, but no date has been set, Oregon State Police Capt. Kyle Kennedy, an agency spokesperson, wrote in an email.

“We are working with other states to assist in considering a path forward,” Kennedy wrote.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton leaves federal court after pleading not guilty to charges of mishandling classified material on Oct. 17, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Bolton was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton pleaded not guilty in Maryland federal court Friday to eight counts of unlawful transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.

He was released from custody on personal recognizance bond, meaning he did not have to post bail but did have to surrender his passport and pledge not to leave the country. 

The next hearing was scheduled for Nov. 21.

In a statement shortly after an indictment against him was returned Thursday, Bolton said the prosecution was engineered by President Donald Trump in retaliation for criticism the longtime national security official had leveled against his one-time boss.

Bolton said the material he used for his 2020 book on his time as Trump’s national security advisor had been cleared for publication, and that he made the FBI aware of a 2021 hack of his private email.

During President Joe Biden’s four years in office, reviews of his case did not result in indictment, he continued. But federal law enforcement during Trump’s second presidency has sought to prosecute individuals opposed to the president, he said.

“These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct,” the statement said. “Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America’s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom. I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power.”

Bolton was formally charged Friday with the 18-count indictment that accused him of transcribing handwritten notes containing classified information onto a word processor and sharing the material in the form of “diary” entries with two family members who were not cleared to receive classified information.

Bolton’s is the third indictment federal officials have secured in recent weeks against high-profile Trump critics. 

Former FBI Director James Comey was charged with lying to Congress following a major fallout in a Virginia federal prosecutor’s office that was widely reported to be over career staff refusing to proceed in the case against Comey.

New York Attorney General Leticia James was also indicted for charges related to a mortgage application.

Like Bolton, both Comey and James have proclaimed their innocence and said they were being persecuted as Trump critics.

The updated National School Transportation Specification and Procedures approved at the recent 17th National Congress on School Transportation is now available.

The National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) announced Wednesday the manual containing industry standards for operations, maintenance, school bus inspections, security, providing service for students with disabilities as well as infants and toddler, and more can be downloaded online. Mailed copies are expected to go out next week to state delegates and other interested parties who attended the 17th NCST proceedings in Des Moines, Iowa in May.

NASDPTS added that a limited number of copies are available for online ordering.

The delegates voted on proposed changes, ending discussions a half day earlier than scheduled. The manual had not been updated since 2015, due to the Congress postponement in 2020 due to COVID-19.

New this year was the inclusion of the alternative transportation committee, which resulted in the first non-school bus set standards in four categories: Driver credentials, driver training, vehicle design/equipment, and special education policy considerations.

Meanwhile, NASDPTS said it expects to release information on the 18th NCST next spring.

Read more about the NCST and the changes this year.

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Related: NASDPTS Weber Provides EXPO Attendees with Updates from NCST
Related: NHTSA Rulemaking at Heart of NCST Resolutions Focused on Safety
Related: National Congress Finishes Early After 10-Year Hiatus

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