John Bolton to plead guilty to federal crime: Report

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton will reportedly plead guilty to one of the 18 federal charges against him, according to sources who spoke to CNN.

Bolton was indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland in Oct. 2025 on eight counts of unlawful transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.

‘I think he’s, you know, a bad person. I think he’s a bad — yeah, he’s a bad guy. It’s too bad. But that’s the way it goes, right? That’s the way it goes.’

The 77-year-old is expected to plead to one count of illegal retention of sensitive documents and also agree to pay a fine of $2.25 million.

Federal prosecutors alleged that he illegally retained classified documents and information for the purpose of writing his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

Bolton had allegedly sent thousands of pages of classified national security material via a private email server to his family members before he was fired by Trump in Sept. 2019.

“While Bolton was a national security adviser, he was literally stealing classified information, utilizing his family as a cutout,” said a top U.S. official to the New York Post after Bolton’s offices were raided in Aug. 2025.

President Donald Trump has lambasted Bolton often since tossing him out of his first administration.

“Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information,” said the president in June 2020.

Bolton is expected to admit to improperly keeping classified information in his diaries, but he is expected to continue to deny he illegally carried classified documents out of government offices.

The sources indicated that Bolton is likely to plea guilty at his arraignment on June 26.

Neither Bolton nor the Justice Dept. commented on the report, according to ABC News.

RELATED: DOJ fires back at John Bolton over accusations in his book

“You’re telling me for the first time, but I think he’s, you know, a bad person,” the president said in October about Bolton’s indictment. “I think he’s a bad — yeah, he’s a bad guy. It’s too bad. But that’s the way it goes, right? That’s the way it goes.”

He was facing 10 years in prison for each of the 18 counts in the indictment.

Bolton worked in the Trump administration as national security adviser between 2018 and 2019. He had been a longtime proponent of regime change in Iran, but he has criticized how the president has handled the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

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