{"id":11222,"date":"2026-07-21T08:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/john-bolton-pleads-guilty-faces-5-years-in\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T08:00:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:00:41","slug":"john-bolton-pleads-guilty-faces-5-years-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/john-bolton-pleads-guilty-faces-5-years-in\/","title":{"rendered":"John Bolton pleads guilty &#8211; Faces 5 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The veteran of American foreign policy, who served as National Security Adviser during Donald Trump&#8217;s first term before becoming one of his harshest critics, appeared at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland.<\/p>\n<h2>The case that began with raids<\/h2>\n<p>The case began after an FBI raid on his residence in Bethesda, Maryland, and his office in Washington in August 2025. Authorities discovered <strong>classified documents<\/strong> concerning intelligence sources and methods, foreign adversaries&#8217; plans, and secret U.S. operations.<\/p>\n<p>According to the 18-count indictment filed in October 2025, Bolton allegedly kept sensitive &#8220;diary&#8221; notes containing information up to &#8220;Top Secret&#8221; level during his tenure from April 2018 to September 2019.<\/p>\n<p>These same notes were unlawfully transmitted, including to members of his family via personal email and messaging applications.<\/p>\n<h2>The plea deal and its cost<\/h2>\n<p>Under the agreement he signed, Bolton pleaded guilty to only one count of retention, accepting a fine of $2.25 million and a sentencing range from zero to five years in prison. The agreement also provides for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the loss of his federal pension<\/li>\n<li>100 hours of community service<\/li>\n<li>briefing national security officials on the material he retained.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The decision was issued before Judge Theodore D. Chuang. Sentencing is expected within the next 90 days.<\/p>\n<p>As U.S. Attorney for Maryland <strong>Kelly O. Hayes<\/strong> stated, <em>John Robert Bolton II pleaded guilty to the unlawful retention of national defense information\u2026 If someone endangers our national security, we are determined to hold them accountable.<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">NEW: Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to one count of retaining national security information related to his time in the White House.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the plea agreement, Bolton faces up to five years in prison, agreed to pay\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QQofcNXUEH\">pic.twitter.com\/QQofcNXUEH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Clash Report (@clashreport) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/clashreport\/status\/2070515932015849894?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 26, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Bolton had initially characterized the charges as an attempt to intimidate political opponents, but ultimately accepted the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>His critics have long pointed out the hypocrisy, as he himself had leveled harsh criticism at others over issues of handling classified information.<\/p>\n<h2>Enemy of the Greeks<\/h2>\n<p>A great enemy of the Greeks during our struggle over the name of Macedonia and beyond. His continuous interventions against Greece&#8217;s just causes and in favor of the historically unfounded Skopje must not be forgotten&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The article is based on a report by <em>Conservativebrief<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nfg-meta\" style=\"display:none;visibility:hidden;font-size:0;height:0;overflow:hidden;\" aria-hidden=\"true\">nfg-origin:gr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former National Security Adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty to unlawfully retaining national defense information, facing up to five years in prison and a $2.25 million fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":11221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[8216,2274,9701,2221,2713,8217,209],"nfg_topic":[135],"class_list":["post-11222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-classified-documents","tag-fbi","tag-greenbelt","tag-john-bolton","tag-maryland","tag-national-security-adviser","tag-united-states","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11222"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=11222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}