John Bolton to plead guilty to mishandling classified documents charge
A hearing is scheduled in his case for later this month.
Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton leaves federal court after pleading not guilty to charges of mishandling classified material on Oct. 17, 2025, in Greenbelt, Maryland. | Alex Kent/Getty Images
Former national security adviser John Bolton will plead guilty to one charge relating to his handling of classified information, according to a person familiar with a deal between prosecutors and Bolton’s attorneys.
Under the agreement, Bolton is expected to plead guilty to one felony count of unlawful retention of national defense information, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss the not-yet-public deal.
That can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, but the deal would limit the 77-year-old national security expert’s potential prison time to no more than five years, while keeping open the option for Bolton’s attorneys to urge the judge to impose no jail time.
Bolton has also agreed to pay a $2.25 million fine, the person familiar said.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, a Maryland-based Obama appointee, has set a hearing in the case for June 26.
CNN was the first to report Bolton’s plan to plead guilty in the case.
The FBI made headlines last August when federal agents searched Bolton’s home in Maryland. The agency’s search led to rampant speculation that officials were acting on orders from the White House, with President Donald Trump publicly pressuring the Department of Justice to pursue his political foes.
But the FBI later revealed that it found documents containing classified markings in Bolton’s D.C. office.
Bolton was indicted last October on a total of 18 counts of allegedly sharing and illegally storing classified information. Initially, he entered a not guilty plea.
Bolton spent one year as the national security adviser during Trump’s first term. But he later turned against the president, becoming a vocal opponent of Trump’s national security strategy.
Prosecutors alleged that Bolton routinely shared classified information from White House meetings and diplomatic encounters, compiling details of those events into messages he exchanged with family members through a personal email account. Those missives then became source material for a book Bolton wrote, although he was never charged with including classified information in what was published.
The Justice Department sued Bolton and his publisher in 2020 to block the book’s distribution, contending that he had defied the publication review process run by the National Security Council. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth concluded it would be fruitless to try to stop publication because copies had already been shipped to many bookstores, but he blasted Bolton for recklessness and said he could face criminal prosecution.
Bolton’s lawyers contended that he thought the book had received final approval as free of classified information, but there was a belated, unusual intervention by senior officials who appeared to be doing Trump’s bidding.
Under President Joe Biden, the Justice Department dropped its lawsuit and any probe into Bolton. Shortly after the suit was dropped, Bolton notified officials that he believed his email had been hacked by Iran, which prompted a renewed investigation into his conduct.
The unauthorized retention charge Bolton is expected to plead guilty to is generally viewed as less serious than the unlawful transmission counts he faced, although all of them carry a maximum 10-year sentence on each count.
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