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John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has reached a plea agreement to resolve charges related to mishandling sensitive national security documents. According to CNN, Bolton is expected to plead guilty to one felony count of illegal retention of national security documents and pay a fine exceeding $2 million.
The plea deal follows months of legal proceedings after prosecutors in Maryland charged Bolton with retaining and sharing classified information, including “diary-like entries” from his time at the White House, through personal email accounts and messaging apps. Prosecutors allege that some of these materials were shared with two unauthorized individuals, reportedly Bolton’s wife and daughter, though these transmissions are not part of the felony count he will plead guilty to.
The indictment originally included 18 charges: eight counts of transmitting national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention. The case against Bolton has been characterized by legal experts as strong, largely because the evidence includes explicit email records and physical documents recovered by the FBI from his home during a court-ordered search.
Bolton, who served for just over a year in the first Trump administration before a contentious departure, has argued that his actions were lawful and that he has become a target due to his public criticism of Trump. His attorney stated that the records in question were “unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021.”
The Justice Department’s investigation intensified after Bolton’s personal email account was reportedly hacked by a person believed to be connected to Iran, exposing classified materials. Unlike other cases against Trump critics, such as former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, Bolton’s prosecution has been supported by career Justice Department officials across both the Trump and Biden administrations.
A sentencing hearing is set for June 26. If the court accepts the plea agreement, Bolton could face a prison sentence of up to five years, although the exact penalty will be determined at sentencing.