by WorldTribune Staff, June 28, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton on Friday pleaded guilty to one felony count of unauthorized possession of a national defense document.
John Bolton. / Creative Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0
Bolton, 77, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 28 and, under his plea agreement, faces a $2.25 million fine, up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and up to 100 hours of community service. He will lose his federal pension.
In a June 2023 interview (see below), Bolton told CNN that the federal indictment against President Donald Trump regarding the alleged mishandling of classified documents should be “the end of [Trump’s] political career.” He described the federal charges “devastating.”
In a post to Truth Social, Trump responded to Bolton’s guilty plea:
“John Bolton, a very dumb, unbalanced, and unskilled former representative of the United States of America, just pleads guilty! He is a terrible person, a lunatic who only wanted to start trouble and wars, and who was a needless pusher of death and destruction wherever he went. Hopefully, he will be dealt with harshly!”
Bolton hired the Left’s go-to attorney, Abbe Lowell, who said Bolton’s guilty plea reflected accountability.
“He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information,” Lowell said in a statement.
The classified documents case against Trump was initially dismissed on July 15, 2024. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case on the grounds that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Following Trump’s re-election, prosecutors requested that the pending appeals be dropped, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit formally dismissed the remaining appeal on November 26, 2024.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the investigation demonstrated that Bolton knowingly mishandled classified information.
“This FBI’s investigation proved that John Bolton knowingly transmitted top-secret information using personal online accounts and retained said documents in his house — all in direct violation of federal law,” Patel said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Despite an onslaught of false claims by the fake news stating this case was ‘retribution,’ this investigation was based on meticulous work from dedicated professionals at the FBI who followed the facts without fear or favor, and Bolton chose to admit his guilt and plead guilty.”
Bolton’s guilty plea was part of a plea agreement that will see prosecutors dismiss the remaining 17 counts at sentencing. His defense attorneys have said they hope Bolton will avoid jail time.
Bolton pleaded guilty to a single felony count of illegal retention of classified information, which involved sensitive notes and diary entries he compiled to write his 2020 memoir “The Room Where It Happened.”
Prosecutors said the documents included highly sensitive intelligence involving covert action programs, human intelligence sources and methods, and foreign military threats.
