John Bolton, Trump Aide-Turned-Critic, Pleads Guilty in Classified-Information Case
The former national-security adviser may avoid jail time.
John Bolton, national-security adviser during President Trump’s first term, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of illegally retaining national-defense information in a deal that could let him avoid prison but will cost him a $2.25 million fine and his federal pension.
Mr. Bolton said he’d violated the law in compiling notes for a book on his time serving Mr. Trump. After leaving the White House in 2019, Mr. Bolton became a vocal critic of the president and published the memoir “The Room Where It Happened” in 2020.
Federal officials began investigating Mr. Bolton’s handling of classified material during the first Trump term. The probe continued through President Joe Biden’s administration and into Mr. Trump’s second term.
“John Bolton held a position of extraordinary public trust as the country’s top National Security Advisor, and he betrayed that trust, jeopardizing our nation’s security,” said Hayden O’Byrne, acting deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Today’s resolution ought to send a message to other public officials whom the public has entrusted with classified, national defense information. If you willfully mishandle these state secrets, the Department of Justice, led by the National Security Division, will investigate and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Trump adviser-turned-critic entered his plea before Judge Theodore Chuang in Greenbelt, Maryland. He admitted to count 12 of an 18-count indictment; prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining counts at sentencing. They reserved the right to argue for a sentence anywhere from probation to five years. Mr. Bolton faced up to 10 years imprisonment on the charge. The judge scheduled sentencing for Oct. 28.
Mr. Bolton served as national-security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. While in that role, per a stipulated statement of facts Mr. Bolton, his attorney Abbe Lowell, and prosecutors signed, he sent more than 1,000 pages of diary-like writings describing his day-to-day work to two family members, unidentified in court papers but reportedly his wife and daughter, neither of whom held a security clearance or was authorized to receive classified information.
He transmitted the material using personal email accounts and a commercial messaging application rather than government systems, prosecutors said. He referred to the writings as his diary and, in one message cited in court filings, told the recipients he was sending them “for Diary in the future.”
The documents at issue touched on topics including intelligence sources, covert actions, and foreign adversaries’ military planning, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said seven of eight diary documents sent during Mr. Bolton’s tenure were classified at the top-secret/sensitive -compartmented-information level.
FBI agents searched Mr. Bolton’s home in Montgomery County, Maryland, and his Washington office Aug. 22, 2025, seizing both printed and digital copies of the diary entries. A federal grand jury indicted Mr. Bolton Oct. 16, charging him with eight counts of transmitting national defense information and 10 counts of retaining it.
After Mr. Bolton left government service, hackers linked to Iran accessed his personal email account between 2019 and 2021, gaining access to classified material he sent to his relatives. A representative notified the FBI in July 2021 that “evidently someone has gotten into Amb. Bolton’s” account, and “it looks as though it is someone in Iran.” The rep later forwarded a message from the apparent hacker citing “the leaked content of John’s email” and warning, “This could be the biggest scandal since Hillary’s emails were leaked, but this time on the GOP side!” The message concluded with a taunt: “Contact me before it’s too late.”
The FBI investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for official business as secretary of state during the 2016 presidential campaign and found she was “extremely careless” with classified information but recommended no criminal charges. The State Department later cited 38 people for violations but imposed no disciplinary action on Mrs. Clinton herself.
Mr. Bolton, a longtime Republican foreign-policy hawk, held a series of senior government posts dating to the 1980s, including assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, undersecretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations.
As part of the plea agreement, Mr. Bolton will provide up to 100 hours of community service to assist government efforts to address public officials’ mishandling of classified information. He will debrief intelligence and law-enforcement officials and submit future writings and public statements for national-security review before publication.
Mr. Bolton also agreed that neither he nor “his survivor or beneficiary” could be paid “annuity or retired pay” because of the conviction.
The agreement, negotiated under a section of federal rules that binds the court to the agreed-upon sentencing range if accepted, gives Judge Chuang discretion over supervised release and probation conditions. If the judge rejects the deal, either side may withdraw, and Mr. Bolton would be allowed to take back his guilty plea.
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