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WASHINGTON — Former Trump administration national security advisor 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 his family members as he was preparing a memoir about his time in office.

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 allows for him to avoid time behind bars, though 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 Atty. Gen. Letitia James, unfolded against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department was using its law enforcement powers to pursue perceived adversaries of President 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.

Bolton is a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on U.S. power. He served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019 and publishing a critical book that portrayed the Republican president as deeply misinformed, 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 risked disclosing classified information. The plea deal that Bolton will enter covers the notes he shared with relatives as opposed to information published in the tell-all book.

A rearraignment, which typically signals a plea agreement, is scheduled for June 26 in federal court in Greenbelt, Md.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The indictment’s 18 counts carried a threat of a substantial prison sentence in the event of conviction.

Court documents alleged that he shared with two family members “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.

In a statement released after his indictment, Bolton 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.”

Bolton also served in the Department of Justice during President 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.

In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security advisor. 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, 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.”

Tucker writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

Green orbs, discs and fireballs. The Trump administration has released a second batch of previously classified files on alleged UFO sightings. The Pentagon says the material is linked to 209 sightings, in various locations, of what are officially known as “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP).

May 4 (UPI) — A man accused of leaking classified military information to a Washington Post reporter will be released on home detention ahead of his trial next year, a judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge Michael Maddox ordered the Justice Department to release Aurelio Perez Lugones to be held on home detention until his trial in February.

Lugones, whose location would be monitored and blocked from using internet-connected devices, is charged with leaking classified information to Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, Politico and The New York Times reported.

Natanson’s home was raided in January by the FBI, with the agency seizing two laptop computers, a cell phone and a Garmin Watch as it investigated Lugones, who was a systems administrator at the Pentagon with a top-secret security clearance.

He allegedly had been taking classified reports home and keeping them before passing some to Natanson, which motivated prosecutors to suggest he could send more information to her if she was not held in jail until the trial.

“The government has no way of knowing what he has retained and what he is able to provide to others,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia McLane said during the hearing.

“The person he was communicating with is still employed and has a willingness to accept classified and national defense information … The receptacle of additional national defense information is still available to the defendant,” she said.

The controversial search of a journalist’s home was triggered by stories Natanson wrote about various national security issues, including one that noted the more than 1,000 sources she had cultivated during the course of her reporting.

Magistrate Judge William Porter approved the search warrant, though he was not told about a federal law that restricts the government from raiding reporters and news organizations, and has said he would go through Natanson’s records for things related to the national security case.

Lugones attorney pushed back on the prosecutors’ assertion that he has “a historical Rolodex of classified information in his head,” and that he’d lost his job, top-secret clearance and access to classified information.

The prosecutors said, however, that the information Lugones retained and passed to Natanson “was not old information.”

“This was current information regarding military movement in the Caribbean, in the Gulf and specifically with Venezuela,” McLane said during Monday’s hearing.

“We have a man who has thrown everything away in an attempt to get back at the administration,” she said.

Calling the prosecution’s argument for holding Lugones in jail speculative, Maddox ordered his release and set a trial date of Feb. 22.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A U.S. special forces soldier who took part in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will be released on bond on charges accusing him of using classified information about the operation to win more than $400,000 in an online prediction market, a federal magistrate said Friday.

The magistrate in North Carolina said he would allow Gannon Ken Van Dyke to be released and told him to report to a New York federal courthouse by Tuesday to continue his case there.

Bearded with arm tattoos, Van Dyke said little during the nearly hourlong hearing, during which he was appointed a federal public defender who declined to comment afterward. The $250,000 unsecured bond did not require Van Dyke to put up any money.

Federal prosecutors say Van Dyke used his access to classified information about the operation to capture Maduro in January to win money on the prediction market site Polymarket.

The sites allow people to trade on almost anything — from the Super Bowl to U.S. elections and even the winners of the TV reality shows.

Van Dyke, who is stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, N.C., was charged Thursday with the unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction.

He could face up to 10 years on four of the criminal counts, and up to 20 years on a fifth, the government said Friday. A publicly listed phone number listed for Van Dyke isn’t in service.

Van Dyke, 38, was involved for about a month in the planning and execution of capturing Maduro, according to the New York federal prosecutor’s office. He signed nondisclosure agreements promising to not divulge “any classified or sensitive information” related to the operations, but prosecutors say he used what he knew to make a series of bets related to Maduro being out of power by Jan. 31.

“This involved a U.S. soldier who allegedly took advantage of his position to profit off of a righteous military operation,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post.

Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets, said it found someone trading on classified government information, alerted the Justice Department and “cooperated with their investigation.”

Massive profits from well-timed bets aroused public attention days after the raid in Venezuela and brought bipartisan calls for stricter regulation of the markets.

The sudden rise of these markets has led to growing scrutiny by Congress and state governments. Some lawmakers alarmed by highly specific, well-timed trades on the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran and wagers on President Trump’s next moves have pushed for guardrails against insider trading.

The Trump administration has been supportive of the industry’s expansion. The president’s eldest son is an advisor for both Polymarket and its main competitor, Kalshi,, and is a Polymarket investor. Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, is launching its own prediction market called Truth Predict.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, announced Thursday that it had filed a parallel complaint against Van Dyke.

That complaint alleges that Van Dyke moved $35,000 from his personal bank account into a cryptocurrency exchange account on Dec. 26 — a little over a week before U.S. forces flew into Caracas and seized Maduro.

Van Dyke made a series of bets on when Maduro might be removed from power, according to the complaint. He placed those bets between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2, with the vast majority occurring the night of Jan. 2 — just hours before the first missiles struck Caracas.

The bets resulted in “more than $404,000 of profits,” the complaint says.

“The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about U.S. operations and yet took action that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of American service members in harm’s way,” said Michael Selig, the commission’s chairman.

Robertson writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Allen G. Breed in Raleigh and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.

April 23 (UPI) — A U.S. Army special forces soldier who participated in capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has been charged with using classified information about the operation to make bets on Polymarket, a decentralized prediction platform, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., is alleged to have profited by more than $400,000 through wagers he made on Polymarket concerning the future of Venezuela, Maduro and U.S. military intervention.

“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

Polymarket is one of several crypto-based prediction markets that grew in popularity during the 2024 general election, allowing users to make wagers on seemingly anything, from who will be drafted first overall in the NFL Draft to when President Donald Trump will announce the war in Iran is over.

In the indictment unsealed Thursday, federal prosecutors alleged that starting from around Dec. 8, Van Dyke participated in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve.

On Dec. 26, Van Dyke allegedly created a Polymarket account, which he used to make 13 bets from Dec. 27, wagering a combined $33,034 on contracts concerning U.S. military involvement in Venezuela.

Before dawn on Jan. 3, U.S. military forces conducted a clandestine operation in Venezuela, resulting in the capture of Maduro and his wife, who were brought back to the United States to face narco-trafficking charges.

After Trump announced the operation that night, Van Dyke allegedly made $409,881 off his bets, which he withdrew to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before depositing them into a newly created online brokerage account, federal prosecutors said.

After the operation, news broke that one user had wagered $32,000 that Maduro would be ousted by the end of January, netting the multi-hundred-thousand-dollar payout.

Prosecutors alleged that as reports of the unusual wager spread, Van Dyke asked the platform on Jan. 6 to delete his account and he allegedly changed the email address registered to his cryptocurrency exchange account.

The indictment charges him with use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction.

If convicted, Van Dyke faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the three Commodity Exchange Act counts, 20 years for the one wire fraud count and 10 years for the unlawful monetary transaction charge.

The charges come amid concern about such decentralized markets that allow for betting on real-world events and calls for them to be regulated

In late March, dozens of lawmakers called on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Office of Government Ethics to address illegal insider trading on these platforms by federal employees following the Polymarket payout on the capture of Maduro and other suspicious trades.

Asked about the development and if he is concerned about bets being placed on the Iran war, Trump told reporters at the White House that he will look into it.

“The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino. And you look at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place, they’re doing these betting things,” he said.

“I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it, conceptually, but it is what it is.”