SouthernWorldwide.com – President Donald Trump has publicly criticized former National Security Adviser John Bolton following Bolton’s guilty plea to mishandling classified national defense documents.
Bolton admitted to the charge in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, as part of a plea agreement. This agreement stipulates that the remaining 17 counts against him will be dismissed at his sentencing. The plea has reignited the public feud between Trump and Bolton, which began in 2019 due to disagreements over foreign policy and Bolton’s critical memoir.
“John Bolton, a very dumb, unbalanced, and unskilled former representative of the United States of America, just pleads guilty!” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. He further described Bolton as “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!”
Bolton, aged 77, is slated for sentencing on October 28. Under the terms of his plea agreement, he faces a $2.25 million fine, a prison sentence of up to five years, three years of supervised release, and a requirement to perform up to 100 hours of community service. Additionally, he will forfeit his federal retirement pension. His legal team has expressed hope that he will avoid incarceration.
FORMER TRUMP OFFICIAL JOHN BOLTON PLEADS GUILTY TO ONE OF EIGHTEEN COUNTS IN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS INDICTMENT
Prosecutors contend that Bolton unlawfully retained classified national defense information after his departure from government service. This included documents classified as top secret. Authorities alleged that he kept over 1,000 pages of notes detailing his daily activities as national security adviser and shared parts of this material with two family members via a personal email account.
Federal prosecutors stated that the documents contained highly sensitive intelligence, including details on covert action programs, human intelligence sources and methods, and foreign military threats.
FBI Director Kash Patel asserted that the investigation indicated Bolton knowingly mishandled classified information.
BOLTON CASE PACKED WITH ‘VERY DAMNING’ EVIDENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY RISKS, LEGAL EXPERTS WARN
Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. Trump has stated he fired Bolton, while Bolton maintains he resigned.
Their relationship further soured with the release of Bolton’s 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” which offered a sharply critical perspective on Trump’s presidency. The Trump administration attempted, unsuccessfully, to prevent the book’s publication, citing concerns about classified information. Bolton did not face charges related to the allegations that his memoir contained classified material.
Abbe Lowell, Bolton’s attorney, defended his client’s decision to plead guilty, framing 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. He contrasted this with Trump’s actions, saying, “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.”
