John Bolton pleads guilty in classified documents prosecution

John Bolton, a prominent critic of President Trump who once served as his national security adviser, pleaded guilty Friday to improperly retaining sensitive materials in “diary-like” entries after leaving the White House.

Bolton, 77, admitted to one count of retaining national defense information during a federal court hearing in Greenbelt, Md.

“I am, your honor,” he told the judge when asked if he was guilty. “I’m sorry for it.”

It marks a significant victory for Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ), which has indicted several of the president’s political foes on criminal accusations. Some of those cases have fallen apart or remain pending, but Bolton’s prosecution is the first to result in a conviction.

“Mr. Bolton knew the damage mishandling confidential material could cause to national security, and yet he still committed this misconduct and put American lives at risk,” U.S. Attorney Kelly O’Hayes said in a statement.

He has not yet been sentenced.

The deal’s terms include a $2.25 million fine and a maximum prison sentence of five years. But Bolton’s team is hoping he can avoid jail time entirely.

The punishment will be up to U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, an appointee of former President Obama assigned to the case. He set a sentencing hearing for Oct. 28.

“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,” Abbe Lowell, Bolton’s attorney, said in a statement.

“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,” the statement continued. “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.”

The plea is a shift for Bolton, who has argued that the DOJ was targeting him as part of a retribution campaign commanded by the president.

After leaving the White House, the two men became visible foes. Bolton regularly criticizes Trump’s actions in the media, while the president has begun referring to his former adviser with insults like “lowlife” and “sleazebag.”

Last year, a grand jury indicted Bolton on 18 charges of unlawfully retaining and transmitting national security information. The indictment accused him of sending more than a thousand pages of “diary-like entries” to two relatives and improperly retaining documents related to national defense in preparation for a potential book.

The plea enables him to avoid the other 17 counts by admitting to one of the retention charges.

Jackie Koppell contributed.

Updated at 11:22 a.m. EDT.