Individuals #1 and #2: The Mystery Connection
The government confirms only that both are related to Bolton. However, lines within the indictment suggest the pair served as editors or early reviewers of Bolton’s 2020 memoir The Room Where It Happened. One message references a publisher’s “right of first refusal,” implying that drafts and correspondence flowed directly from these diary files into the book process.
If proven, that connection could make the indictment’s unnamed recipients unindicted co-conspirators—especially if they assisted with manuscript preparation before the National Security Council’s pre-publication review.
The “Cloak & Dagger” Remark
In one encrypted chat dated July 2018, Individual 1 teased, “More to come with cloak and dagger … so he says.”
Prosecutors cite this as evidence Bolton and his confidants knew the sensitivity of their correspondence and concealed it. In espionage vernacular, “cloak and dagger” symbolizes covert intrigue—a phrase now likely to become emblematic of the government’s claim that Bolton’s conduct was deliberate, not accidental.
