This Is Your Brain on TDS: John Bolton’s Career Ends in Courtroom Disgrace

What has happened to John Bolton? As regrettable as it is, the answer is quite clear.

John Bolton’s long and distinguished career in public service began 45 years ago, when he served in 1981 and 1982 as a general counsel for USAID. After that, he was USAID’s assistant administrator for program and policy coordination; assistant attorney general for the office of legislative affairs; assistant attorney general for the civil division; assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs; a commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom; under secretary of state for arms control and international security; U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and finally, national security advisor.

Bolton is now 77 years old; at this point, he should be enjoying a comfortable retirement and the appreciation of a grateful nation. Instead, as the Daily Mail reported, on Friday he “walked into federal court with a very stern expression before admitting to stealing national security secrets.”

What a comedown. Here is a man who spent practically his entire life in the service of the nation, and it all ends in a courtroom, as he confesses how he betrayed the public trust. What got into John Bolton? The diagnosis is all too easy: John Bolton sold his reputation under the influence of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

And so now Bolton, instead of spending his declining years attending rubber-chicken banquets in his honor and piling up awards for his living room wall, “pleaded guilty on Friday to a single charge of retaining classified information - a significant update in his criminal case, and one that may help him avoid a lengthy jail sentence.” It’s unclear whether he is receiving this leniency in view of his many years of government service or because the prosecutors hate Trump as much as he does.

Even with the leniency, however, Bolton could still spend some time in the prison cell that he so ardently hoped to see President Donald Trump occupying: “Under the terms of the deal, Bolton could serve up to 60 months, or 5 years, in prison in exchange for his guilty plea. He may also be required to pay a fine of up to $2.25 million and serve 100 hours of community service.”

It all came out of his hatred for the man he was serving as national security advisor: “Prosecutors said Friday that Bolton 'abused his position of trust' as former White House national security advisor by sharing roughly 1,000 pages of classified information in the form of 'diaries' with his wife and daughter.” After he left the Trump White House, Bolton “retained the documents related to national defense at his home in Montgomery County, Maryland.”

In court on Friday, Bolton responded, “Yes, your honor, the summary is accurate” when a summary of these events was read out. He then “pleaded guilty to Count 12 of his federal criminal indictment, which accused him of retaining national intelligence information.” This will enable him to avoid a trial that could have resulted in him spending the decades in the slammer that he wished on Trump.

Bolton initially tried the Comey/Brennan defense strategy, claiming that Trump’s Justice Department was vindictively targeting him for criticizing the president. But Bolton couldn’t maintain the façade and changed his initial not-guilty plea to guilty.

That change may have come at least in part because of the weightiness of the case against him. Kelly Hayes, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, “stressed the seriousness of the case. The information Bolton pleaded guilty to storing, she said, was at the ‘highest classification levels.’”

Hayes added, “As Mr. Bolton admitted, he shared more than 1,000 pages of information about his day-to-day activities as the National Security Advisor, including information related to the national defense, with two individuals who neither had the security clearances nor the need to know that information. The document in Count 12, for example, revealed intelligence about an adversary's plans for an attack conducted against US forces in another country. It contained human intelligence using sensitive sources and methods, and it discussed a covert action program."

Even worse, “prosecutors noted earlier in court that one of Bolton's personal devices was the victim of a hack by an Iranian-linked group at some point between 2019 and 2021, prompting him to notify government authorities about the breach. At the time, they said, Bolton failed to notify federal investigators about the classified material he knowingly stored on the device in question.”

Reacting to the case, Trump was dismissive. Bolton, he said, was a “lowlife” and “not a smart guy.” That much is abundantly clear at this point. Trump continued, “He doesn't talk, he's like a very quiet person except on television, and then he can say something bad about Trump. He'll always do that. But he doesn't talk, he's very quiet.”

Very quiet. We can all hope that henceforth he will remain that way.

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