Ex-national security adviser John Bolton pleads guilty to mishandling classified information, faces up to 10 years in prison
GREENBELT, Md.— President Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, pleaded guilty Friday to a single count of hoarding national defense information while working in the White House, leaving the 77-year-old facing up to ten years in federal prison.Bolton, an Iran hawk and former US ambassador to the United Nations, copped to the charge during a brief hearing in federal court just outside Washington.The longtime GOP foreign policy figure was indicted by a federal grand jury this past October on 18 counts of illegally hoarding or sending sensitive information, raising the prospect that Bolton would spend the rest of his life behind bars after his Maryland home and DC office were raided by federal investigators on Aug.
22, 2025.Among the items recovered were documents about weapons of mass destruction, internal government communications about strategy, secret travel memos, and the US mission to the UN.Prosecutors say Bolton used email and various messaging apps to send documents classified as high as “top secret” to contacts that revealed intelligence about future US attacks, foreign adversaries and international relations.Bolton was also accused of sending more than a thousand pages of diary-like notes and assessments via his personal AOL email to two individuals without the necessary clearance, widely believed to be his wife and daughter.That information was exposed in July 2021 after the AOL account was infiltrated by Iranian-linked hackers, according to investigators.Bolton has faced constant security threats from Iran since the January 2020 killing of notorious military commander Qassem Soleimani.Friday’s guilty plea by Bolton wraps up a long-running investigation that began near the end of Trump’s first term and that FBI sources previously told The Post was mysteriously “shelved” during the administration of former President Joe Biden.In 2020, Bolton faced a separate investigation into his handling of classified information surround...