John Bolton pleads guilty in classified documents case

( Yahoo )

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during President Donald Trump's first administration, admitted in federal court that he mishandled national security information, Reuters reported.

Bolton, who became a Trump critic after working for him from 2018 to 2019, pleaded guilty the morning of June 26 to one count of retaining national security information. He reached a plea deal earlier this month.

A federal grand jury indicted Bolton in October on eight counts of transmitting national defense information and ten counts of retaining national defense information. Most of the information in question was classified as top secret, according to the indictment.

The indictment said Bolton "abused his position" as national security adviser by "sharing more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities" on the job with two relatives who lived in his home but were not named in the indictment.

The indictment said Bolton kept handwritten notes of his days and then sent diary-like entries to these relatives using a commercial messaging application, and sent other top secret information to them using his personal email accounts hosted by AOL and Google.