Former President Donald Trump on Friday criticized John Bolton, his erstwhile National Security Adviser, after Bolton admitted to the unauthorized possession of a classified national defense document.
Bolton entered a guilty plea just hours earlier during a proceeding in the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. He pleaded guilty to a single count of unauthorized possession of a national defense document as part of an agreement with prosecutors, who will drop 17 additional charges at the time of sentencing. This development immediately drew a sharp reaction from Trump, who has frequently been at odds with Bolton over foreign policy matters and the former adviser's critical memoir since their public disagreement in 2019.
"John Bolton, a very dumb, unbalanced, and unskilled former representative of the United States of America, just pleads guilty!" Trump declared in a late Friday post on Truth Social. "He is a terrible person, a lunatic who only wanted to start trouble and wars, and who was a needless pusher of death and destruction wherever he went. Hopefully, he will be dealt with harshly!"
Sentencing Details and Allegations
Bolton, 77, is scheduled for sentencing on October 28. Under the terms of his plea agreement, he faces a potential $2.25 million fine, up to five years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, up to 100 hours of community service, and the forfeiture of his federal retirement pension. His legal team has expressed optimism that Bolton will avoid incarceration.
Prosecutors assert that Bolton unlawfully retained classified national defense information after concluding his government service, including documents marked as top secret. Authorities alleged that he kept over 1,000 pages of notes detailing his daily activities as national security adviser and subsequently shared portions of this sensitive material with two family members using a personal email account.
Federal prosecutors stated that the documents contained highly sensitive intelligence concerning covert action programs, human intelligence sources and methods, and foreign military threats. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Director, Kash Patel, commented that the investigation confirmed Bolton's knowing mishandling of classified information.
A Strained Relationship and Controversial Memoir
Bolton served as Trump's national security adviser from April 2018 until September 2019. While Trump has maintained that he dismissed Bolton, Bolton has consistently stated he resigned from the position.
Their relationship further deteriorated following the 2020 publication of Bolton's memoir, "The Room Where It Happened." The book offered a highly critical perspective on Trump's presidency, and the Trump administration unsuccessfully attempted to prevent its publication, claiming it contained classified information. Despite these allegations, Bolton was never charged in connection with claims that his memoir contained classified material.
Attorney Highlights Accountability
Bolton's attorney, Abbe Lowell, defended his client's decision to plead guilty, characterizing it as an act of accountability.
"He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information," Lowell stated. "By contrast, President Trump thumbed his nose at the classified information laws, took actual classified documents to his Florida mansion, interfered with the investigation of that conduct, and has never accepted any accountability for his conduct. Ambassador Bolton, whose offense was only keeping a diary which contained classified information, kept a record to preserve history, but Donald Trump kept secrets to serve himself."