Former Trump adviser John Bolton pleads guilty in classified files case

John Bolton, who served as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser before becoming a vocal critic, pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to one count of retaining sensitive government information – as part of a deal in which prosecutors recommend he be sentenced to no more than five years in prison.

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When asked if he was guilty of the offense, Bolton said: “I am your honor, and I’m sorry for it.”

The admission added a black mark on the legacy of a public servant whose career has spanned several presidential administrations, and delivered a victory to a Justice Department focused on prosecuting Trump’s political foes.

Bolton initially pleaded not guilty in the case that prosecutors alleged involved the foreign policy expert sending “diary-like” recollections of his sensitive work to relatives who were helping him prepare a memoir. But earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang scheduled Friday’s hearing in Maryland federal court, indicating that Bolton intended to change his plea.

Aside from the guilty plea on one count of retention of national defense information, Bolton also agreed Friday to pay a fine of $2.25 million, paying half within five days, and the rest within 90 days.

Under the agreement, prosecutors recommend Bolton face no more than five years in prison at his sentencing. It will be up to the judge to decide whether to accept that recommendation. In the original indictment, which charged Bolton with 18 counts of transmitting or retaining national defense information, he faced as many as 10 years behind bars per count.

A longtime conservative, Bolton served in the administrations of numerous Republican presidents. Under President George W. Bush, Bolton was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and later worked as Trump’s third national security adviser during his first term in the White House. The president fired Bolton in 2019 after the two clashed over Trump’s approach to foreign policy.

Bolton went on to call Trump “stunningly uninformed” in his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” about his time in the White House.

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It was his preparation for that book, authorities said, that became the basis for his indictment. Federal prosecutors accused Bolton of sharing more than 1,000 pages of the “diary-like” summaries of his work from 2018 to 2019 with relatives through a personal email account. That account, authorities said, was later hacked by someone that U.S. officials believe was linked to the Iranian government. FBI agents also raided Bolton’s downtown Washington office and his Bethesda, Maryland, home, seizing documents described as “classified” or “secret.”

Bolton’s indictment last October came soon after two of Trump’s other political foes – former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James – were targeted for criminal prosecution in separate cases.

The charges against Comey and James, which were pursued against the objections of career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, were both dismissed and widely criticized as political retribution.

Comey has since been indicted in a separate case in federal court in North Carolina on allegations that a photo he posted on social media in 2025 constituted a dangerous threat to the president. He asserted his innocence in a video statement.

The Bolton case, which began with a probe initiated under President Joe Biden’s Justice Department, has been led by veteran prosecutors in Maryland – including U.S. attorney Kelly O. Hayes and national security division chief Tom Sullivan.

Bolton had maintained that his conduct was legal and said last fall that the Justice Department’s investigation was an extension of Trump’s “intensive effort to intimidate his opponents.”

At the time, Trump told reporters at the White House that the veteran diplomat was a “bad guy.”

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“Too bad,” Trump said then. “But that’s the way it goes.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this report.