Former Trump adviser John Bolton pleads guilty to mishandling classified documents

John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to mishandling classified security information as part of the notes he compiled for the book.

Bolton, now a prominent critic of the US president, has been charged with 18 counts related to the mishandling of classified material, and initially pleaded not guilty.

On Friday, he pleaded guilty to one count of illegal possession of classified information. His archives include a diary containing national security information, some of which is classified as top secret.

Bolton faces up to five years in prison and has agreed to pay a $2.25m (£1.7m) fine, prosecutors said.

Bolton will also report to national security officials about the classified information he illegally kept and perform 100 hours of community service, the BBC’s US partner CBS News reported.

After a judge read the allegations against Bolton in court on Friday, including sending diary entries containing sensitive information to members of his family, Bolton said the allegations were true.

“I did it your honor,” Bolton said about whether he had done the deed that exists today. He added that he was “sorry about it.”

He will be sentenced on October 28, US media reported.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes said Bolton has control over confidential information and who he can share it with.

“He also knew the damage to the country’s security that could be caused by not handling that sensitive information properly,” he said. “However, as Mr. Bolton recently admitted, he has put our national security at grave risk by breaking the law.”

In a statement, Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said his client had done “what real leaders do”.

“He took responsibility for the mistake he made, thus saving government resources to continue with a case that could reveal more sensitive information,” said Lowell. “To the contrary, President Trump turned a blind eye to classified information laws, took real classified documents to his Florida mansion, obstructed an investigation into that conduct, and has never accepted any accountability for his conduct.”

Trump was indicted in 2023 for illegally keeping classified defense information, but the charge was later dropped after he was re-elected.

Bolton was fired from the Trump administration for the first time in 2019. His 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, recounts his time working under Trump, portraying him as a president who had no knowledge of geopolitics.

The White House filed a lawsuit to block publication of the letter, saying it contained classified information and was not properly vetted. The judge denied the request and the letter was released days later.

The US Department of Justice then opened an investigation into whether Bolton mishandled classified information by disclosing parts of it in the book.

He has also been accused of passing on some classified material from his time as national security adviser to two relatives.

Bolton has continued to criticize the president ever since. Trump, in turn, suggested Bolton should go to jail and called him a “sleazebag”.

The lawsuit said that at one point the hacker was able to access Bolton’s account, where the documents were stored and sent an explicit threat that would cause “the biggest scandal since Hillary. [Clinton]leaked emails”.

Bolton’s impeachment came on the heels of other high-profile criminal charges against Trump critics, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.