John Bolton, former national security advisor to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Friday, June 26, to unlawfully retaining classified information during a federal court hearing in Maryland.
Bolton, who went from advisor to adversary and vocal critic, had reportedly accepted a deal and planned to plead guilty earlier this month, but today is the day he finally went before Judge Theodore D. Chuang in Greenbelt, Maryland, to determine his fate. Prosecutors report that Bolton now faces a prison sentence of up to 60 months and has agreed to pay a fine of $2.25 million.
He was initially indicted in October 2025, and he will now face sentencing on October 28. He was charged with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and ten counts of retention of national defense information and could have faced ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each charge.
Judge Chuang reiterated the full list of charges in the case and asked if Bolton was only pleading guilty to count 12. “Yes, your honor,” he replied. Whether he ends up catching that aforementioned five-year sentence – or how much of it he would serve in prison vs out on probation or parole – will be determined in October.
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