John Bolton reaches plea deal over mishandling of sensitive national security documents

John Bolton is expected to plead guilty to one count of illegal retention of sensitive national security documents. He has agreed to pay a fine exceeding $2 million. A conviction on one count of illegal retention comes with a sentence between 0 and 60 months in prison.

The plea stems from diary entries Bolton kept from the first Trump White House and retained in his home. Prosecutors accused him of mishandling these materials that contained top secret information from his time as national security advisor.

Bolton originally faced eight counts of transmission of national defense information and ten counts of retention of national defense information. The plea deal reduces this to a single guilty plea on one retention count.

Prosecutors accused Bolton of sharing “more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities” through his personal email account with two unauthorized individuals. The alleged transmission of classified information is not part of the charges he expects to plead guilty to.

The FBI opened its inquiry into Bolton after his email was breached by suspected Iranian hackers. This occurred during the Biden presidency and led to the discovery of the diary-like entries. A hearing is scheduled for June 26.

Trump had long called for Bolton to be arrested over classified information contained in his 2020 memoir.