Former National Security Adviser John Bolton is set to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials, CNN first reported Thursday citing anonymous sources.
Bolton has agreed to pay a fine of more than $2 million and will plead guilty to a single count of illegal retention of sensitive national security documents, one of CNN’s three anonymous sources told the outlet. On this count, Bolton can face a prison sentence of up to 60 months.
Federal prosecutors accused the former national security adviser of using his personal email to share “more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities,” with two individuals believed to be his wife and daughter, CNN reported. However, this is not the charge that sources told the outlet Bolton is expected to plead guilty to. The ex-official’s hearing is scheduled for June 26.
In October 2025, a federal grand jury indicted Bolton on 18 counts in connection to the former Trump administration official’s alleged mishandling of classified information.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the John Bolton PAC did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
“The FBI’s investigation revealed that John Bolton allegedly transmitted top secret information using personal online accounts and retained said documents in his house in direct violation of federal law,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement at the time.
Bolton, widely known as a proponent of hawkish foreign policy, served as President Donald Trump’s national security chief from April 2018 to September 2019, before publicly falling out with and becoming a notable detractor of the president.
In August 2025, FBI agents conducted a morning raid on Bolton’s home, carrying out a direct order from Patel.
A source familiar with the raid told Daily Caller editorial director Vince Coglianese at the time that the investigation into Bolton “involves stealing classified documents and weaponizing them for political purposes.”
In 2021, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped a criminal investigation filed during Trump’s first term, which sought to determine whether Bolton illegally divulged classified information in his 2020 tell-all book “The Room Where it Happened.” The scathing memoir, named after a song from the hip-hop Broadway musical “Hamilton,” made several allegations against Trump including that he had asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him reelection that year.
After his 2025 federal indictment was handed down, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley described that Bolton “comes across like a teenager in a chat room,” according to his alleged behavior by the DOJ.
“I mean, he’s sending this stuff by email after all the controversies that we have had for years about trying to secure this type of information,” Turley said during a Fox News appearance at the time.
A registered Republican, Bolton also notably served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration from August 2005 to December 2006. He previously served in the State departments under the administrations of both George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush and in the DOJ under the Reagan administration.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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