JOHN BOLTON, THE former national security advisor to Donald Trump, has pleaded not guilty to charges of mishandling classified information.

Bolton surrendered today at the courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he entered his plea.

He was released on his own recognisance and a hearing in the case has been scheduled for 21 November.

Bolton’s plea follows his indictment yesterday by a federal grand jury. 

The 76-year-old veteran diplomat has been the subject of a long-running investigation into handling of classified information.

Bolton is accused of sharing with his wife and daughter more than 1,000 pages of notes that included sensitive national defence information he had gleaned from meetings with other US government officials and foreign leaders or from intelligence briefings.

Authorities say some of the information was exposed when operatives believed to be linked to the Iranian government hacked Bolton’s email account he used to send the diary-like notes about his activities to his relatives.

Bolton faces decades in prison if found guilty. 

The former diplomat’s indictment follows the recent pressing of criminal charges by the Trump Justice Department against two other prominent critics of the Republican president – New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey.

However the investigation into Bolton was already well under way by the time Trump took office a second time in January and appears to have followed a more conventional path towards indictment than other recent cases against perceived Trump foes.

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 vocal critic of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called “unfit to be president”.

Reacting to Bolton’s indictment yesterday, Trump told reporters at the White House that his former aide is a “bad person”.

“I think he’s a bad guy,” Trump said. “That’s the way it goes.”

- With reporting from PA and AFP