John Bolton expected to plead guilty to mishandling classified information

The charge involves keeping classified information in diaries, sources say.

President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton is expected to plead guilty Friday to mishandling classified information.

Bolton, who arrived in federal court in Maryland Friday morning, is expected to plead guilty to one count of illegal retention of sensitive documents, sources have told ABC News.

Bolton has also agreed to pay a fine of $2.25 million, sources said.

The count he is pleading guilty to involves keeping classified national security information in diaries, according to sources. Bolton is expected to maintain that he did not take documents with classification markings out of government offices.

The guilty plea would make Bolton thus far the only successfully prosecuted case in Trump's campaign of retribution against those he perceives to be his political enemies.

Bolton, who was national security adviser for part of the first Trump administration, was indicted by a grand jury in October 2025 on charges that he allegedly unlawfully transmitted and retained classified documents.

The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in Maryland, charged Bolton with eight counts of unlawful transmission of national defense information as well as 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.

Prosecutors had accused Bolton of using a non-government personal email account and messaging application to transmit to two unauthorized family members at least eight documents that contained information classified at levels ranging from "secret" to "top secret."

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