We long were fans of John Bolton, because of his generally hawkish and pragmatic foreign policy views. But his career devolved into bitter anti-Trumpism, and today it came to an ignominious end as Bolton pled guilty to mishandling classified information:
President Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, pleaded guilty Friday to a single count of hoarding national defense information while working in the White House, leaving the 77-year-old facing up to five years in federal prison.
Bolton, an Iran hawk and former US ambassador to the United Nations, copped to the charge during a brief hearing in federal court just outside Washington, responding to a judge who asked whether he was guilty: “I am, Your Honor, and sorry for it.”
Bolton’s actions were no mere technical violation:
The charge that Bolton admitted to found that he unlawfully possessed a document with “intelligence about an adversary’s knowledge of planned US actions.”
Among the items recovered by the FBI were documents about weapons of mass destruction, internal government communications about strategy, secret travel memos, and the US mission to the UN.
Prosecutors say Bolton used email and various messaging apps to send documents classified as high as “top secret” to contacts that revealed intelligence about future US attacks, foreign adversaries and international relations.
And the circumstances under which all of this came to light indicate the serious national security implications:
That information was exposed in July 2021 after [Bolton’s personal] AOL account was infiltrated by Iranian-linked hackers, according to investigators.
Bolton, now 77 years old, faces up to five years in prison. He also will pay a $2.25 million fine. Call me soft-hearted, but I hope Bolton doesn’t do jail time, in consideration of his long, if obviously flawed, public service.
More importantly, this case illustrates the hazard of casual handling of secret information by Washington insiders that we have seen over and over. Among other things, the use of personal email accounts to transmit classified information, or simply information that officials want to be immune from FOIA requests, has been widespread and is dangerous. Let’s hope that Bolton’s example causes officials to act more carefully in the future.
