Battle Lines Drawn as WH Takes Bolton's Book of 'Lies' to Court
The White House fight with former national security adviser John Bolton is the latest chapter in a lengthy history of such Washington battles, yet it will likely define future cases between the U.S. government and former employees looking to write tell-all books.
The government asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order to prevent the release of the book, claiming it contains classified material.
The book, set to be released Tuesday, is already sitting in warehouses, and media outlets, including The Associated Press, have obtained advance copies.
In the 577-page book, Bolton writes that Trump “pleaded” with China’s Xi Jinping during a 2019 summit to help his reelection prospects.
Trump on Thursday called the book a “compilation of lies and made up stories” intended to make him look bad. He tweeted that Bolton was just trying to get even for being fired “like the sick puppy he is!”
Bolton’s book, which is getting terrible reviews, is a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad. Many of the ridiculous statements he attributes to me were never made, pure fiction. Just trying to get even for firing him like the sick puppy he is!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020
The two sides are set to face off in U.S. District Court in Washington, adding Bolton’s name to a long list of authors who have clashed with the government over publishing sensitive material.
The government says Bolton violated a nondisclosure agreement in which he promised to submit any book he might write to the administration for a pre-publication review to ensure government secrets aren’t disclosed.
Bolton’s lawyer says his client received a verbal clearance from classification expert Ellen Knight at the National Security Council.
But he never got a formal clearance letter, and the Trump administration contends that the book, titled “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” still contains classified material.
The case “has the makings of being the defining litigation for nondisclosure agreements for decades,” according to Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University who has handled cases involving classified materials for decades. “Both sides have now dug in.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out at Bolton in a statement late Thursday, calling him a “traitor.”
“I’ve not read the book, but from the excerpts I’ve seen published, John Bolton is spreading a number of lies, fully-spun half-truths, and outright falsehoods,” Pompeo said.
“It is both sad and dangerous that John Bolton’s final public role is that of a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people.”
The government said in its court filing that after Knight finished her review, the White House ordered a second review to be done by Michael Ellis, a political appointee who has been senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council since March and previously was the NSC’s deputy legal adviser.
Ellis began his review of Bolton’s book on May 2 at the behest of national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
Classification battles have popped up regularly over the years.
In 2010, the Defense Department negotiated to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the book “Operation Dark Heart,” a story about the Afghan War by Anthony Shaffer, a former defense intelligence officer. It was initially cleared for publication by Army reviewers, but when spy agency reviewers took a look, they claimed it included classified information that could threaten national security.
Matt Bissonnette, who wrote “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden,” was ordered to forfeit an estimated $6.8 million to the federal government in 2016 when he skipped a pre-publication review by the Pentagon. The Defense Department claimed the book contained classified information, although the publisher denied that it did.
In 2008, a former undercover CIA officer writing under the pen name Ishmael Jones published “The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture,” which recounted his work on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. In 2011, a federal judge ruled that he had broken the law by not going through the CIA’s pre-publication review process, which Jones claimed the agency had stalled.
A case that went all the way to the Supreme Court dealt with a book by Frank Snepp, who signed a nondisclosure agreement while working at the CIA and then published a book about the agency’s activities in South Vietnam. He didn’t get clearance from the CIA. A lower court denied Snepp royalties from the book, and the Supreme Court upheld that ruling in 1980.
The Justice Department filed a similar action over former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s book, seeking to collect all the proceeds because it didn’t undergo a pre-publication review.
Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in constitutional and national security law, said that while the court might be hesitant to prevent publication of the book, the Trump administration might “have a very good shot at preventing anyone from making any money off the book.”
Keith Urbahn, one of Bolton’s literary agents and founding partner of Javelin, based in Alexandria, Virginia, said the book has sparked interest in the past two days from television and film representatives, but no deals have been signed.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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