The Dictatorship

Bolton will plead guilty in classified information case, AP source says

Published

4 weeks ago

June 6, 2026

Bolton will plead guilty in classified information case, AP source says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or disseminating classified information, including diary-like notes from his time in government that officials say he shared with family members as he was preparing a memoir about his career.

Under the agreement, Bolton would also face a $2.25 million fine, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a deal that had not been made public. Any prison sentence would be capped at five years, but the agreement could also allow him to avoid time behind bars. The punishment will ultimately be up to a judge.

The case against Bolton, filed weeks after prosecutors secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia Jamesunfolded against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department is using its law enforcement powers to pursue perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump. The investigation burst into public view last August when FBI agents served search warrants at his Maryland home and Washington office, but it had been well underway by the time Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

FBI agents carry boxes from former National Security Advisor John Bolton's office in Washington, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File) — FBI agents carry boxes from former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s office in Washington, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)

Wrote book critical of Trump

Bolton, 77, is a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power. He served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being pushed out in 2019 and publishing a critical book that portrayed the Republican president as deeply misinformed and painted an unflattering portrait of his leadership and decision-making.

Trump’s administration fought unsuccessfully to block the publication of “The Room Where it Happened” on the grounds that the book contained classified information that could harm national security if exposed. Bolton’s lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer had classified information.

The indictment he faced focused on notes shared with his wife and daughter rather than the substance of the book itself.

Bolton had initially pleaded not guilty and, in a statement released after his indictment, described the charges as part of an “intensive effort” by Trump “to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct.”

A re-arraignment, which can signal a plea agreement, is scheduled for June 26 in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The indictment’s 18 counts carried a threat of a substantial prison sentence in the event of conviction, but the plea will avert that possibility.

Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton, arrives for his arraignment at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Md., Oct. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)

Accused of sharing classified material with family members

Court documents alleged that he shared “diary-like” entries with information classified as high as top secret that he had learned from meetings with other U.S. government officials, from intelligence briefings or talks with foreign leaders. After sending one document, Bolton wrote in a message to his relatives, “None of which we talk about!!!” In response, one of his relatives wrote, “Shhhhh,” prosecutors said.

The indictment said that among the material shared was information about foreign adversaries that in some cases revealed details about sources and methods used by the U.S. government to collect intelligence. One document related to a foreign adversary’s plans for a missile launch, while another detailed U.S. government plans for covert action and included intelligence blaming an adversary for an attack, court papers say.

Bolton’s government service long predated the Trump administration. He had also served in the Justice Department during President Ronald Reagan’s administration and was a State Department point person on arms control during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Bolton was nominated by Bush to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but the strong supporter of the Iraq War was unable to win Senate confirmation. He resigned after serving 17 months through a recess appointment that allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate approval.

John Bolton appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill April 11, 2005, on his nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, File)

Fired after foreign policy clashes with Trump

In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security adviser. His brief tenure was characterized by disputes with the president over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine.

Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure, with Trump announcing on social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton’s resignation.

Bolton subsequently criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government in his book, including by alleging that Trump directly tied providing military aid to Ukraine to that country’s willingness to conduct investigations into Joe Biden, who was soon to be Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential election, and members of the Biden family.

Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”

_____

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year

Published

6 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Tuesday shows, locking in profits while his investors were socked with losses.

Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate. Fueling their rise were billionaire investors and Trump’s own move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.

Trump also took in millions last year from selling Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. The sale of Trump-branded watches alone brought in $4.7 million.

The 927-page disclosure form paints a stark, if incomplete picture of the massive growth of the president’s wealth since taking office last January through a web of business interests — many of which have benefited from the policy moves of Trump’s own government. Trump has insisted that his sons direct his finances but the arrangement rejects the conflict of interest protections that his recent predecessors in office had instituted.

Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at $6 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2024.

The Trump business is growing abroad

The rise of crypto relative to Trump’s property is especially noteworthy because he first rode to office boasting of his property wins. It’s also remarkable because that mainstay business also boomed last year. Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas that amounts to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid and other important matters while the family business was striking the deals.

A property in the United Arab Emirates generated $10.4 million for the Trump business last year. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company $9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him $5 million each.

One of his prominent domestic properties, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, notched big growth last year, too.

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Trump took in $77 million from the property, a 50% jump from the year earlier when he was just another citizen, as heads of state and business people flocked to it in his new term.

The disclosure report doesn’t give profit figures, just revenue, so it’s impossible to know how much he is earning.

Trump is now the billion-dollar crypto man

Trump said Wednesday that most of his gains last year came from the stock market and he’s just riding along with everyone else.

“We’re all profiting,” he said. “I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”

But crypto was clearly the big revenue generator last year in part due his own moves since taking office — pushing policies friendly to the industry and reversing a Biden administration regulatory crackdown.

The regulators are still worried. Before Trump’s World Liberty began selling “governance tokens,” they issued warnings about this new kind of crypto asset, saying that unlike stocks, the tokens offer no ownership stake in the issuing company, just voting power on certain corporate policies, and are difficult to value.

Buyers pounced anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent $75 million on the tokens and $200 million on the souvenir coins. In February last year, a federal lawsuit charging him with duping investors was paused before being settled for a $10 million fine.

The billionaire, Justin Sun, has repeatedly denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, investors have seen the value of their Trump-tied holdings drop significantly.

The price of World Liberty tokens has fallen 80% since they started trading in September. And the Trump souvenir coins that spiked to more than $74 in the days after launching in January 2025 now sell for $1.68.

The White House says Trump only acts in the public interest

The White House has repeatedly said Trump put his business in a trust managed by his sons and is not involved in its decisions and that there are no ethics issues to discuss.

“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”

The Trump umbrella company, the Trump Organization, has said its deals overseas were with private companies, not with governments.

Still, it is difficult to know what is truly private in countries ruled by authoritarians, royal families and one-party governments.

For a new Trump resort in Vietnam, the report shows Trump took in $5 million last year after the ruling Communist Party sent its deputy prime minister to sign off on the deal and, according to The New York Times, pushed farmers off the land to make way for the construction.

Whether the deals played any role in changing U.S. policies in ways these countries sought is nearly impossible to know, but the countries did get what they wanted.

Vietnam got tariff relief. Qatar got access to advanced U.S. technology previously off limits, and Saudi Arabia got U.S. fighter jets it had coveted for years.

___

AP White House reporter Josh Boak contributed from Washington.

The Dictatorship

‘REGIME CHANGE’ sold 300,000 copies…

Published

6 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

It turns out readers still want to learn more about President Donald Trump after all.

“Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the l atest book on the Trump presidencywritten by political journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, has sold more than 300,000 copies in its opening week, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

They’re the kind of sales that numerous works about Trump reached during his first term, but had been rare during his second term. Publishers had speculated that the public had tired of Trump books, believing there was little left to know.

The total figures include preorders, print book sales, ebooks, and e-audiobooks and orders that have yet to be fulfilled because of demand, the publishing house said. Simon & Schuster said the book is into its third hard copy printing, with 200,000 copies on order, after it sold out quickly in bookstores and on Amazon. It’s the best first-week clip of any hardcover nonfiction book in 2026.

The book covers the first 14 months of Trump’s second presidency and takes readers inside the West Wing, White House residence and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, aboard Air Force One and on foreign trips with the president.

Trump, who has a long history with Haberman from her days covering him as a New York City business and society figure, has trashed the book as “mostly made up.” Haberman and Swan are now New York Times reporters.

Their manuscript depicts meticulous details of Trump’s military decisions, how he’s wielded the power of the Justice Department against his political opponents, his conversations with other power players, and the time and attention he’s devoted to remaking the aesthetics and structure of the White House.

The book spells out a thesis that Trump himself believes: Had he not lost the 2020 election, he would not be as powerful in his second term as he is now — emboldening him to trample norms, dismantle established institutions and push the limits of presidential power.

Haberman and Swan have been featured regularly across news talk shows promoting the book and sharing details of their reporting, including a sit-down with Trump in which he boasted about being compared to some of history’s great villains.

Sean Manning, vice president and publisher at Simon & Schuster, said the book “has entered the national conversation” and will hold up as “a work of historic importance.”

The Dictatorship

Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill

Published

13 hours ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill

As a rule, JD Vance seems to go out of his way to say whatever Donald Trump wants him to say, but from time to time, contradictions emerge between the president and the vice president.

Take the recently passed housing bill, for example, which arrived at the White House earlier this week.

As part of an interview Tuesday night with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, the Ohio Republican said, “Frankly, Laura, I would love it if Democrats were willing — you know, not that they will agree with Republicans all the time — but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better. You know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise. That’s not what they’re talking about.”

I realize the vice president must be very busy, but it really isn’t that difficult to keep up with the basics of current events. In this case, when Vance said Democrats are unwilling to work with Republicans on priorities such as “lowering housing prices,” he turned reality on its head. It was literally last week when Democrats offered unanimous support for a bipartisan bill to address housing prices — legislation that members such as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts helped to write.

Democrats recognized that doing so would offer the GOP some election-season bragging rights, but Democrats did it anyway because they have prioritized governing and “actually making the lives of American citizens better” over partisan considerations.

But Vance didn’t just contradict reality; he also contradicted his boss.

Just one day before the vice president brazenly misled a national television audience, Trump was asked about the pending housing bill. “It’s very bipartisan; that means the Democrats like it,” the president saidwhile acknowledging that he hasn’t yet decided whether to sign it.

In other words, when Vance said policymakers “could have some real bipartisan compromise,” he seemed indifferent to the fact that we’ve already had some real bipartisan compromise — a detail that even Trump was willing to acknowledge a day earlier.

Whether the vice president will suffer for publicly contradicting the president remains to be seen.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”