Former national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty Friday in Greenbelt, Maryland, to one count of retaining classified national defense information before U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang.
Under the terms read in court, Bolton agreed to a plea deal that includes a potential prison term of no greater than 60 months and a $2.25 million fine, and Judge Chuang set a sentencing hearing for Oct. 28.
Bolton was indicted last October on a total of 18 counts related to the transmission and retention of national defense information, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors alleged Bolton shared more than 1,000 pages of diary-like material with two relatives over a multiyear period, including passages the government says contained classified information.
Court filings and prosecutors said the disclosures spanned from April 2018 to August 2025 and were made to two family members, in some instances for possible use in a book Bolton was writing.
Prosecutors described his methods as including commercial messaging apps, text messages and personal email accounts such as AOL, and they said hackers believed to be associated with the Iranian government later gained access to one personal account.
Bolton appeared in court wearing a dark suit, answered the judge's questions and, after agreeing with prosecutors' summary of facts, said, "And I am sorry for it," the court record shows.
His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said, "Today, Ambassador Bolton did what real leaders do. He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information."
As part of the agreement, Bolton will debrief national security officials on the information he retained, perform 100 hours of community service and forgo any retirement benefits tied to his government service, prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes said the count Bolton pleaded to involved "the unlawful retention of intelligence about an adversary's plans for an attack conducted against U.S. forces in another country," and added, "It contained human intelligence using sensitive sources and methods, and it discussed a covert action program."
Prosecutors also alleged that the diary-like pages were typed transcriptions of handwritten notes and that Bolton used personal email accounts, including AOL and Google, and commercial messaging apps to send the material.
The single felony count to which Bolton pleaded guilty carries a maximum statutory sentence of 10 years, and Judge Chuang will have final discretion over the sentence to impose.