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Politics

Ex-Trump adviser sued over tell-all book

June 17, 2020

The Trump administration has sued a former high-ranking adviser over a book it says contains classified information. However, released excerpts reveal a portrait of "chaotic" decision making in the White House.

Ex-Trump adviser Bolton sued to delay publication of tell-all book
Image: Getty Images/C. Somodevilla

The administration of US President Donald Trump sued the president's former national security adviser, John Bolton, on Tuesday to delay the publication of a book that the White House claims contains classified information on US foreign policy. The book, titled "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," is expected to paint a picture of discord and chaos in the Trump Administration during Bolton's tenure.  

Publisher Simon & Schuster, called the lawsuit "nothing more than the latest in a longrunning series of efforts by the administration to quash publication of a book it deems unflattering to the president.''

In the lawsuit, the US Justice Department requests that a federal court order Bolton to "instruct or request'' that the publisher delay publication of the book to allow for acompletion of the national security reviewprocess. The book was supposed to be released in March. Its release date was twice delayed and it is now set for release on June 23.

According to publishers, the book describes Trump as "a President addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government."

The lawsuit follows threats by Trump on Monday that Bolton would face legal action. "I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified. So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the book gets out he's broken the law," Trump said. "That's called criminal liability. That's a big thing."

Security concerns

Trump has accused Bolton of not completing the clearance process required for a book by former government officials who had access to sensitive information. The book contains "significant quantities of classified information that it asked defendant to remove,'' the lawsuit said.

While Trump admitted he had not read the book, he said the problem of revealing conversations with the president "becomes even worse if he lies about the conversation, which I understand he might have in some cases."

US Attorney General William Barr also raised concerns over the pre-publication review process, and added that the Trump administration was "trying to get them to go through the process and make the necessary deletions of classified information."

Bolton's lawyer Chuck Cooper said that his client had painstakingly worked with classification specialists at the White House National Security Council to ensure classified material is not published.

"This is a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr. Bolton, in violation of his constitutional right to speak on matters of the utmost public importance,'' according to Cooper.

wmr, adi/sri (AP, Reuters)

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