Former NSA John Bolton pleads guilty to retaining classified information

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of illegally holding classified documents as part of a deal with federal prosecutors. Appearing in a Federal District Court in Greenbelt, Bolton confirmed that he retained information over notes he compiled for a book that excoriated U.S. President Donald Trump, according to a report in The New York Times. Bolton, who was a part of the first Trump administration, has recently been a strong critic of him.

"I'm sorry for it," he told Judge Theodore Chuang, before learning that his sentencing would take place in October. The national security adviser could face up to five years in prison as per the plea deal. It also includes a fine of $2.25 million and the forfeiture of his pension. Bolton had alleged the Department of Justice (DOJ) framed a politically motivated case against him when he was first indicted. The 18-count indictment accused him of using a personal email and messaging app to transfer more than 1,000 pages of classified information to his wife and daughter, who did not have clearance.

The indictment also revealed that Bolton's emails, which contained the classified information, were hacked by an entity associated with the government of Iran in 2021. "A representative for Bolton notified the U.S. government of the hack in or about July 2021," it stated, "but did not tell the U.S. government that the account contained national defense information, including classified information, that Bolton had placed in the account from his time as national security adviser.”

The hacker later taunted Bolton over the classified information, which he had been illegally retaining. "I do not think you would be interested in the F.B.I. being aware of the leaked content of John's email (some of which have been attached)," it said. "This could be the biggest scandal since Hillary's emails were leaked, but this time on the G.O.P. side! Contact me before it's too late."

Bolton's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the former NSA did what real leaders do by taking responsibility for his actions, as per eminent journalist Scott McFarlane. "He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information," Lowell said. "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."

Calls for the former Trump advisor to be punished have been doing the rounds already, with Steve Bannon, an ally of the President, calling Bolton a traitor. "I want to know how many years in prison he gets for this. There was a lot of classified information. He took it out. He broke the law. Bolton's on the target list and a traitor to the country," he said.