John Bolton, the former national security adviser who turned into one of Donald Trump's sharpest critics, entered a guilty plea Friday to mishandling classified information in a federal courtroom in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The plea deal marks a dramatic shift from Bolton's initial denial of charges filed last October. He admitted to sharing over 1,000 pages of diary notes containing national security material through personal email and messaging apps with relatives who lacked security clearance. Those relatives were identified as his wife and daughter.
Bolton had compiled the notes while researching his 2020 memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," which painted Trump in a deeply unflattering light. The White House and Justice Department had both attempted to block the book's publication on national security grounds.
The classified material later fell into the hands of hackers linked to the Iranian government. Bolton reported the breach to authorities but did not initially disclose that his email account contained sensitive information.
Under the original indictment, Bolton faced 18 charges, each carrying up to 10 years in prison. The agreed-upon deal dramatically reduces potential exposure, carrying a sentence range from probation to a maximum of five years. He has also agreed to pay a $2.25 million fine.
Sentencing is scheduled for October 28 before U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang.
When the charges were first announced, Bolton claimed they were part of Trump's retribution campaign against political opponents. The investigation itself began during Trump's first administration but intensified under President Joe Biden as FBI agents looked into the hack.
Bolton served as national security adviser for just over a year before Trump fired him in 2019. His memoir characterized the former president as "stunningly uninformed." Trump has since called Bolton "a bad guy" and a "crazy" warmonger.
Justice Department officials seized on the plea to warn other government officials handling classified material. Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hayden O'Byrne stated that Bolton "held a position of extraordinary public trust" and "betrayed that trust, jeopardizing our nation's security."
Author James Rodriguez: "Bolton's guilty plea strips away the political theater and exposes a fundamental failure to protect national secrets, regardless of how justified he felt in writing his book."
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