Ex-national security adviser turned Trump critic could face prison for sharing classified information with relativesUS politics live – latest updatesJohn Bolton, the former US national security adviser who became an arch-enemy of Donald Trump after serving under him and then being fired, pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of mishandling classified information that could result in him going to prison.Bolton admitted the charge, as widely anticipated, in an appearance at a federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a plea deal designed to produce a lesser sentence by reducing the seriousness of the accusations against him. Continue reading...
On Friday morning, June 26, former National Security Adviser John Bolton entered a guilty plea to illegally retaining classified information related to his work in the first Trump administration. But Bolton's attorney, that same morning, gave a scathing opinion of the indictment.Lowell, according to journalist Scott MacFarlane, said, in his statement, "Ambassador Bolton did what real leaders do. He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information. By contrast, President Trump thumbed his nose at the classified information laws, took actual classified documents to his Florida mansion, interfered with the investigation of that conduct, and has never accepted any accountability for his conduct. Ambassador Bolton, whose offense was only keeping a diary which contained classified information, kept a record to preserve history, but Donald Trump kept secrets to serve himself."According to NBC News reporters Owen Hayes and Rebecca Shabad, Bolton "faces a prison sentence of up to 60 months and has agreed to pay $2.25 million, prosecutors said. He is set to be sentenced October 28."Hayes and Shabad note, "Bolton described the national security information that he retained as an electronic diary entry that he shared with two members of his family. Bolton was originally indicted in October 2025, charged with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and faced up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine per count, and three years of special release."The NBC News reporters point out that in 2025, Lowell said of the case against Bolton, "The underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago. These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton's personal diaries over his 45-year career — records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021."Hayes and Shabad report, "Last fall, Bolton was the third Trump critic to be indicted by the Justice Department, which also charged New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey in separate cases on charges of mortgage fraud and lying to Congress, respectively. After a federal judge dismissed the charges against James, the DOJ twice failed to re-indict her."
Former White House national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty Friday to charges that he unlawfully kept and transmitted classified national security information. The case is a big win for President Donald Trump, who went after Bolton after he exposed embarrassing details about Trump’s first term.Bolton admitted to sharing classified details with his wife and daughter, which amounts to one felony count. He was accused of 18 violations, but only pleaded guilty to one. Bolton has agreed to pay a fine of over $2 million, and could face up to five years in prison.The case centered around notes Bolton took for his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, and the information he shared with his family as part of the editing process. During the first Trump administration, the Justice Department tried to prevent the book from coming out, claiming it contained classified information.The memoir revealed damning details about the first Trump presidency, including Trump’s corrupt foreign policy dealings, his general incompetence, and confirmation that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine until they agreed to investigate Joe Biden, which Trump was impeached for in 2019.Trump has called his former national security adviser a “lowlife” and a “sleazebag,” and claimed that if he had listened to Bolton’s advice while in office, the U.S. would be in “World War Six” by now.Though Bolton is just one of many Trump enemies that have been prosecuted at the president’s fancy, CNN reports that the case against him was more sound than the others.