John Bolton Pleads Guilty to One Count of Retaining Classified Information

John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser and now one of his sharpest critics, pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of retaining classified national defense information, CBS News, CNBC and The Guardian reported. The plea, entered in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, before U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, resolves an 18-count indictment brought last October. Asked whether he committed the acts, Bolton said, “I did, your honor,” and added that he was “sorry for it,” CBS reported.

Under the agreement the two sides settled on a prison term of no more than 60 months, a $2.25 million fine, 100 hours of community service aimed at preventing unlawful disclosure of classified information, and a debriefing of national security officials on what he retained, CBS reported. CNBC said the conviction also bars Bolton and his survivors from collecting an annuity or federal retirement pay. Remaining counts will be dismissed at sentencing, which is set for Oct. 28. The Guardian reported that the deal is believed to carry a sentence ranging from probation to the five-year maximum. Part of the hearing was sealed for national security reasons, CNBC said.

The indictment had accused Bolton of eight counts of transmitting and 10 counts of retaining national defense information. Prosecutors said that from April 2018 to August 2025 he sent more than 1,000 pages of “diary-like” notes about his White House work to two relatives, using a commercial messaging app and personal email accounts, and that some contained classified information, according to CBS and CNBC. The Justice Department said in a statement that the documents included information classified up to the top-secret level, such as foreign adversaries’ military plans and intelligence from clandestine human sources, and that one personal email account was later hacked by a cyber actor allegedly linked to Iran, CNBC reported. The Guardian noted that Bolton reported the hack but did not disclose that his account contained classified material.

Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes said in a statement that Bolton “knew the damage mishandling confidential material could cause to national security, and yet he still committed this misconduct and put American lives at risk.” Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said his client “did what real leaders do” by taking responsibility for a mistake and saving the government resources “to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information,” CBS reported.

The case has been politically charged. Bolton, who served as national security adviser from April 2018 until September 2019, wrote a memoir critical of Trump, and when charges were filed he said the president was pursuing him as part of a campaign of retribution, the Guardian reported. The Justice Department’s investigation began in Trump’s first term and intensified under Joe Biden, the Guardian said, as agents looked into the hack. Trump has called Bolton “a bad guy” and “crazy,” the Guardian reported. Bolton is one of three high-profile Trump critics indicted since January 2025, CNBC noted; the cases against the other two, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, were dismissed in November because the prosecutor was invalidly appointed. Both have denied wrongdoing and say they were targeted for their opposition to Trump.