The lawsuit, filed in Washington, DC, a federal court, alleges that the 500-page manuscript plus Bolton is “full of confidential information,” and prosecutors say that Bolton has resigned from the ongoing White House inspection process for the book he had made. obliged to do as a result of the agreement.
“(Bolton) bargained with the United States as a condition of his employment in one of the most sensitive and important national security positions in the United States Government and now wants to renege on the offer by unilaterally deciding that the pre-publication review process is complete and decided on its own “whether confidential information should be published,” wrote the prosecutor.
The lawsuit marked the latest White House effort on Bolton after months of back and forth between the National Security Council and Bolton representatives as to whether the book contained classified information. Simon & Schuster previously announced that Bolton’s book, “In the Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” will be released on June 23.
Bolton’s books were sent to the warehouse before the scheduled release. He has recorded an interview with ABC which is scheduled to air on Sunday. And a source close to him said he intended to publish the book as scheduled on Tuesday, which meant he expected to deal with the consequences of the administration afterwards, not before.
CNN has contacted Bolton’s lawyer for comment. In a letter sent to NSC’s legal counsel last week, Chuck Cooper, Bolton’s lawyer, accused the White House of trying to block the book for “purely political reasons,” adding that “as a practical matter, it was (late) arriving.”
The tiring back and forth between Bolton, his lawyers and the White House regarding the pre-publication review process was detailed in the lawsuit. Bolton, who left the White House in September, submitted his original draft late last year to the White House for an inspection process, and was told shortly thereafter by a senior NSC official that it contained large amounts of confidential information, including material designated as top secret.
After several face-to-face meetings and editing rounds culminating in late April, Bolton appears to have completed a pre-publication review. Ellen Knight, the official who reviewed the book, has determined that the latest version of the manuscript no longer contains confidential information, the lawsuit said.
But less than a week later, another round of reviews began at the White House, this time by Michael Ellis, NSC’s senior director of intelligence. The review came at the request of Robert O’Brien, Bolton’s successor as national security adviser, according to the lawsuit.
O’Brien “is concerned that the manuscript appears to still contain confidential information, partly because the same administration that it serves is still in the office and the manuscript illustrates sensitive information about the ongoing foreign policy issues,” the lawsuit said.
Ellis completed his review on June 9 and found that there were still some examples of confidential information in the book – because news reports illustrated Bolton’s intention to move forward with the publication of the book on June 23, even without the White House’s approval.
In a letter sent to Bolton’s lawyer on Thursday, the NSC’s legal advisor wrote that “the text still contains confidential information, because, among other things, it includes information that he himself classifies and sets out for declassification only after a lapse of twenty five years . “
Trump is increasingly irritated by the notion that his former national security adviser will publish public books, sources said. He told the staff that he wanted to stop publication and reflect personally about demanding that he stop it, a tactic that the previous president relied on when former officials or people close to him had written books that he thought would be unprofitable. He has a history of filing lawsuits which he then sent down.
On Monday, Trump incorrectly stated that conversations with him were classified and signaled the possibility of legal action.
“They are in court or they will be in court soon,” Trump said. “But he understands he is not completing the process or approaching the process.”
Trump said Bolton would have “criminal problems” if the book was published as is. The lawsuit filed Tuesday was a civil suit, and did not carry criminal penalties. Initially, Attorney General William Barr did not confirm that his party was preparing a lawsuit but said the government was focused on asking Bolton to complete the cleaning process to publish the book.
“People who come to work in government and have access to sensitive information generally sign an agreement that says when they leave the government, if they write something that refers to or might reflect some of the information they have access to, they must go through a cleaning process before they can publishing a book, “Barr said on Monday. “We don’t think Bolton has gone through that process, not yet completed that process.”
In addition to the delayed publication, the government asked the court to order Bolton publishers to “take and discard” copies of any books that were distributed. They also ask for whatever money the book gets from its sale – or the sale of film rights from it – if it is published without a complete pre-publication review.
This is an extraordinary story and will be updated.
CNN’s Kylie Atwood and Paul LeBlanc contributed to this report.
