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Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see opponents investigated, exerting influence on the DOJ to charge ex FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

"We can't delay further, it's killing our reputation and trustworthiness," the leader wrote recently in a social media post.

"They impeached me, and charged me (five times!)" he declared, mentioning the multiple legal proceedings he encountered after leaving the White House in 2021 and James's lawsuit.

Each have since been indicted, in cases that many experts have said appear to be driven by politics and difficult to win in court.

But the most recent allegations against a presidential opponent, former security advisor John Bolton, stand apart, legal specialists and former prosecutors assert.

"In my opinion, contrasting Bolton's case to Comey's is like equating apples to oranges," said Mark Lesko, a ex federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York.

The Specifics of the Case

Bolton has been formally charged on national allegations pertaining to the supposed mishandling of classified information. Since leaving the White House in 2019, he has emerged as a outspoken Trump critic, even to call him "remarkably ignorant" and unfit for office in his memoir.

Experts contend that while there may be political reasons to go after Bolton, the methods used to obtain an charge and the evidence gathered against him suggest a possibly more substantial legal argument than the DOJ presented against Comey.

"These actions that's being alleged is simultaneously more serious and seems to have taken place over a significant period of time," commented Carissa Byrne Hessick, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

During his time as Trump's security advisor, and after his 2019 White House departure, prosecutors claimed that Bolton placed the country at danger by wrongfully retaining and sending classified information to family members using unprotected methods, including AOL. Some of the materials were marked top secret.

The charge states that at one point a hacker accessed to Bolton's account where documents were stored and sent an seeming threat to cause "the biggest scandal since Hillary [Clinton]'s emails were leaked".

Bolton pleaded not guilty during a court appearance on recently to 18 distinct counts of mishandling classified information.

Retribution or a Strong Legal Argument?

The schedule of his indictment - arriving on the heels of charges against James - has renewed questions about external influence on the legal system.

Trump once suggested Bolton should be in prison, and called him a "disreputable person". Bolton, for his part, wrote a book about his experience in the Trump government that was highly critical of the president.

"There's no question that the schedule of this charge, when combined with others, has prompted doubts about the validity of these allegations, and the reason these counts are being filed now," said Jamil Jaffer, founder and director of the National Security Institute.

Nevertheless, he continued, "if the Justice Department is able to demonstrate the facts alleged and demonstrate the information is correctly designated, his conduct may certainly have broken the statute".

Charging such a high-ranking official for mishandling sensitive materials is "uncommon" but not unprecedented, said Carrie Cordero, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

"Cases that involve sensitive materials pose difficulties to prosecute, but they can and are brought against equally low-level and high-level officials, from time to time," she said.

Parallels to Investigations into Former President and President

Trump similarly faced allegations of improperly storing sensitive materials at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida and obstructing their recovery, but that matter was eventually thrown out by a federal judge and voided by his re-election as leader.

A special counsel also found that former President Joe Biden wrongfully maintained sensitive materials from his period as vice president, but did not criminally charge him.

Bolton's case bears similarities to Trump's classified documents issues, noted Mr Lesko, who also held a senior security position at the DOJ.

Strict procedures regulate the management of classified documents. To secure a conviction, the prosecution must prove that Bolton knew the material he was transmitting was restricted, and he had to intentionally transfer it to someone without authorization to obtain it.

"Because of the sensitive nature of the material at issue in this case, we lack a great deal of details about why the government believes elements like the diary entries and the other material he communicated by electronic message, and the reason there were restricted," said Mr Jaffer.

A Increasingly Conventional Legal Action

The process by which the DOJ brought this legal action will be closely examined, following Trump publicly posted his wish to see his critics charged and several of those charges materialized.

But Mr Lesko said in Bolton's situation, authorities appear to have adhered to protocol.

"This Bolton case and eventually the charge seemed to have observed the regular process including the rules and standards within the DOJ," he said.

Unlike Comey's short, concise indictment, Bolton's was a more "conventional" filing that "clearly sets forth the details concerning the facts and situation in this instance," Mr Lesko commented.

"It appears fairly aligned with a long line of cases... where government officials improperly handled and shared sensitive information."