The attorney representing John Bolton says President Trump’s former national security adviser will publish his tell-all book in spite of the White House’s efforts to stop it.
Bolton’s memoir, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, has been delayed repeatedly so it could undergo review by the National Security Council.
In the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, attorney Chuck Cooper said the White House was invoking national security “as a pretext to censor” Bolton.
“This attempt will not succeed, and Mr. Bolton’s book will be published June 23,” Cooper said.
Cooper has denied that the book contains top-secret information that should not be published.
Bolton spent 18 months as national security adviser, leaving the administration in September 2019. He has been critical of Trump since his departure.
Contents of the book leaked earlier this year, including Bolton’s claim that Trump told him that he was withholding aid to Ukraine until officials helped with investigations into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Trump was impeached over the alleged quid pro quo. The Bolton allegation emerged after Trump had been impeached.
Calls for Bolton to testify in Trump’s impeachment trial were dismissed by Republicans, but Trump said it would have posed a national security risk.
“He knows some of my thoughts,” Trump said in January in Davos, Switzerland. “He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader, and it’s not very positive, and then I have to deal on behalf of the country? It’s going to be very hard. It’s going to make the job very hard. He knows other things. And I don’t know if we left on the best of terms.”
Cooper cites a Washington Post report from Feb. 21 in which Trump “directly weighed in” on the manuscript review, “telling his staff that he views John Bolton as ‘a traitor,’ that everything he uttered to the departed aide about national security is classified and that he will seek to block the book’s publication.”
Further reporting from the Washington Post quotes the president informing a group of television anchors that he would seek to block the book’s publication. “After I leave office, he can do this,” Trump said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
