John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term and later became one of his fiercest critics, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of possessing national security information, two sources familiar with the matter said.
As part of the deal reached with federal prosecutors, Bolton will be arraigned again on June 26, at which point the judge will have until 90 days to issue his sentence, the sources said.
Bolton faces a potential sentence ranging from probation to 60 months in prison, the sources said. He also agreed to pay $2.25 million in restitution, one of the sources said.
Bolton described the national security information in question in an electronic journal that he shared with two family members, both sources said.
“So there are no allegations that he took classified documents home, or that he leaked documents, or that he shared documents with foreign adversaries,” one of the sources said.
When he was arrested in October, Bolton initially pleaded not guilty to charges of mishandling classified information. He was indicted that month by a federal grand jury in Maryland on eight counts of transmitting national defense information and ten counts of illegally retaining that information.
One of the sources, close to Bolton, told NBC News that he changed his plea for the good of the country.
“It was a very difficult decision for him,” the source said. “More importantly, he does what leaders do and takes responsibility. He understands that if he went to court, it would mean, in effect, the disclosure of even more classified material that he would need to reveal to defend himself. And given Ukraine and the Middle East, he didn’t want to do that.”
Bolton clashed with Trump after writing an unflattering book about his experience working for the president and continually criticizing the president’s foreign policy moves, particularly toward Russia.
Just days after returning to the White House, Trump canceled Bolton Secret Service details even if he was the target of an alleged murder-for-hire scheme by a member of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In June 2020, Trump publicly called for Bolton to be prosecuted.
“He disclosed massive amounts of classified and confidential, but classified information,” Trump said. Fox News in an interview at the time. “It’s illegal and you’re going to jail for it.”
Bolton, however, maintained that he had fulfilled his legal obligations and obtained a letter from a National Security Council official in 2020, it said the book contained no classified documents.
Trump himself was indicted in 2023 for mishandling classified documents and obstructing efforts to recover them after leaving office. But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the charges in 2024.
