Trump Administration To Try And Block John Bolton’s New Book?
[guest post by Dana]
Just a week before the much-awaited book by President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton is set to go on sale, the Trump administration is expected to file a lawsuit in federal court seeking an injunction to block the book from being released in its current form, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The lawsuit is expected to be filed in the coming days and could come as soon as today, sources said, cautioning that some details are still being worked out.
Bolton, who departed the Trump administration last fall, was originally supposed to publish his book, “The Room Where It Happened,” earlier this year, but it was met with delays from the White House as the book went through a standard prepublication security review for classified information by the National Security Council.
Details about the book:
In a description of the coming book, Bolton’s publisher says, “What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation.”
According to the description, posted online, Bolton details potentially impeachment-worthy “transgression” across “the full range” of Trump’s foreign policy.
Bolton and the NSC are at odds over the book, as the NSC claims that “significant amounts” of classified information are in the book and Team Bolton denies the assertion, saying that none of it “could reasonably be considered classified.”
While the administration will attempt to block the book from being published in its current form because of it allegedly containing classified information, the book’s publisher claims that any necessary adjustments to the book have already been made:
…the publisher said that in the weeks before Bolton’s book was printed,Bolton worked with the NSC to address NSC’s concerns, and the “final, published version of this book reflects those changes.”
Before reporters today, Trump pushed back against Bolton and his soon-to-be-released book:
Trump asked AG Barr to weigh in on @AmbJohnBolton's book release. Barr said there is a process for clearing books, adding that Bolton "hasn’t completed the process." He said that publishing the book while Trump is in office is “unprecedented."
— Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) June 15, 2020
Because of Team Trump’s legal moves to postpone the release of the book in its current form and his wide-spread unpopularity, it’s hard not to see how this will only make people more curious about the contents of the book, and also – unintentionally – give the book free publicity. Apparently, I’m not alone:
–Dana
People are going to go for this book because it threatens to expose and confirm from a firsthand view, what most people already think about Trump. I expect that what we generally think of him will be confirmed by specifics. No wonder Trump wants to block it.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 2:43 pmI don’t think Trump would know classified information if he ate dinner with it every evening and slept with it every night. Also, I suspect he hasn’t read the book (or anything other than his own tweets while writing them) so how would he know what it contains.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/15/2020 @ 2:53 pmThis is amazing. I just ordered the book. The timing is much worse for Trump than it would have been. Will it just be the same old issues, or is there something here that will renew demands for Trump’s removal from office?
If the GOP has any sense, they will find a way to change candidates. Kanye 2020!
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:14 pm“Here’s How John Bolton’s Lawyer Just Threw Him Under the Bus”
BuDuh (64c12e) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:17 pmComedy gold.
Dave (1bb933) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:42 pmI wouldn’t waste a dime on this book. Bolton has nothing to say that I didn’t already know years ago. Trump is a total fraud. A complete failure as a businessman, other than at selling his brand name to investors, who then went bankrupt, and contractors, who he short-changed. As an executive, he’s inept, incompetent and corrupt. I don’t need to pay Dolton a dime to tell me that.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:46 pmI was thinking the other day that The Lincoln Project, or Biden, should make an ad that’s a mashup of Trump ranting about how everyone he appointed to important posts like Attorney General, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, Chief of Staff, … is an idiot, a loser, a liar, a coward, a failure, etc, etc.
The ad could suggest that anyone who appointed so many allegedly corrupt or unfit people to positions of great power should be held accountable, before pivoting at the end to “Has it ever occurred to Donald Trump that maybe everyone else isn’t the problem: he is.”
Dave (1bb933) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:54 pm@4. Walrus Gumbo-ed; ex-President of Fox News ‘Red-Eye’ now wholly red-faced.
“Great. Once in my life I buzz a little building. How’d I know it was the Supreme Court?” – Charlie Stark [Ernie Kovacs] ‘Wake Me When It’s Over’ 1960
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:01 pmBolton’s book either has classified stuff in it, or it doesn’t. If it has classified information, it shouldn’t be published. We got through a situation where the FBI has been sitting on redacted and non-disclosed memos/emails claiming the classified information precluded names/dates/text from being released. When the acting DNI director unclassified the data, the head of the Senate Intelligence committee (the D who really it) claimed the Acting DNI director was damaging national security.
I don’t remember any liberal/leftists siding with the acting DNI director. But now, its “Let Bolten publish – Damn the Torpedoes, full-speed ahead”. I think the world can wait till the classified data is removed from the book. Nobody *really* cares what Bolten thinks. He just wants to sell books and get revenge on Trump while the Liberal/leftists, who’ve always hated super-hawk Bolten, just want to hurt Trump.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:03 pmOne thing the book will tell us is who advised Trump to hire Bolten. It sure turned out to be the worst hiring decision, since Trump picked Rod Rosenstein. Bolten not only wanted to start a war with Iran, he hired POTUS wannabees Col Vindman and Faith Hill. Two more disloyal snakes in the grass, it’d be hard to find. Bolten himself couldn’t wait to rush off to the NSA lawyer when the Ukraine phone call was made.
If Trump get re-elected, I hope he’s learned that loyalty comes first when hiring subordinates. Hiring talented but potentially disloyal people can work in private industry because its all about $$. and nobody cares that your VP of Marketing tells the world you did this or that. But in politics and Government a back-stabbing, disloyal, and dishonest employee and Leak, lie, and help the enemy.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:09 pmBolten needs to get the book out NOW. Because if he publishes after early November, nobody will Care.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:11 pmBuduh,
Bolton may have submitted a redacted manuscript or a manuscript that had no classified information. If so, then he has not exposed himself to penalties or sanctions. For instance, Trump claims that any conversation with him is confidential and highly classified, so he thinks anything in Bolton’s book about their conversations violates the NDA and is classified — but it is doubtful that is the law.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:22 pmNDA’s won’t hold up in court, BuDuh. The only way for Trump to stamp out Bolton’s book is to claim there’s classified information, but Trump’s claim is too expansive. The book will out.
Paul Montagu (91c593) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:23 pmTrump tried to enforce his NDA with Omarosa and it failed miserably.
Paul Montagu (91c593) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:26 pmA)Faith Hill is a country music singer married to Tim McGraw.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:30 pmB)Fiona Hill was hired for the NSC by George W. Bush admin, then rehired in 2017 by H.R. McMaster, guess which one of those isn’t John Bolton?
C) What’s a “POTUS wannabees”?
If you’re interested, you can download it in PDF form via the pirate bay, well, you could an hour ago. I’m sure it’s already physically out and about too, they’ve shipped it to warehouses, not exactly high security locations.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:34 pmAG Barr is now on the public record insisting that Bolton has not completed the security vetting process for publication. If true, screw Bolton.
If not, impeach Barr.
Ed from SFV (f64387) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:50 pmHaven’t we been here before: who are you going to believe – Barr or Bolton?
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:53 pmAG Barr: “Bolton’s book is not chemical.” Okay, Barr didn’t actually say that.
Paul Montagu (91c593) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:12 pmThe most inadvertently funny comment was Trump’s saying that Bolton will have a “very strong criminal problem” is his book is published.
Barr has been around far too long to write as many checks as he has written lately without having the means to honor them. I have found him to cautious. Is he fully capable of the worst deceits? Yup. But, again, stoopid he ain’t.
Given the viciousness of the media towards him and DJT, it would be stunning if he were lying about this. They’ll get him. With all Barr’s enemies, it’ll be easy peasy. It would also all but destroy the case Durham is building.
So, given the state of things, I do believe Barr.
Ed from SFV (f64387) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:17 pm“ Haven’t we been here before: who are you going to believe – Barr or Bolton?”
__ _
Meanwhile……
“The media in the last four years has devolved into a succession of moral manias. We are told the Most Important Thing Ever is happening for days or weeks at a time, until subjects are abruptly dropped and forgotten, but the tone of warlike emergency remains: from James Comey’s firing, to the deification of Robert Mueller, to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, to the democracy-imperiling threat to intelligence “whistleblowers,” all those interminable months of Ukrainegate hearings (while Covid-19 advanced), to fury at the death wish of lockdown violators, to the sudden reversal on that same issue, etc.
It’s been learned in these episodes we may freely misreport reality, so long as the political goal is righteous. It was okay to publish the now-discredited Steele dossier, because Trump is scum. MSNBC could put Michael Avenatti on live TV to air a gang rape allegation without vetting, because who cared about Brett Kavanaugh – except press airing of that wild story ended up being a crucial factor in convincing key swing voter Maine Senator Susan Collins the anti-Kavanaugh campaign was a political hit job (the allegation illustrated, “why the presumption of innocence is so important,” she said). Reporters who were anxious to prevent Kavanaugh’s appointment, in other words, ended up helping it happen through overzealousness.
There were no press calls for self-audits after those episodes, just as there won’t be a few weeks from now if Covid-19 cases spike, or a few months from now if Donald Trump wins re-election successfully painting the Democrats as supporters of violent protest who want to abolish police. No: press activism is limited to denouncing and shaming colleagues for insufficient fealty to the cheap knockoff of bullying campus Marxism that passes for leftist thought these days.
The traditional view of the press was never based on some contrived, mathematical notion of “balance,” i.e. five paragraphs of Republicans for every five paragraphs of Democrats. The ideal instead was that we showed you everything we could see, good and bad, ugly and not, trusting that a better-informed public would make better decisions. This vision of media stressed accuracy, truth, and trust in the reader’s judgment as the routes to positive social change.
For all our infamous failings, journalists once had some toughness to them. We were supposed to be willing to go to jail for sources we might not even like, and fly off to war zones or disaster areas without question when editors asked. It was also once considered a virtue to flout the disapproval of colleagues to fight for stories we believed in (Watergate, for instance).
Today no one with a salary will stand up for colleagues like Lee Fang. Our brave truth-tellers make great shows of shaking fists at our parody president, but not one of them will talk honestly about the fear running through their own newsrooms. People depend on us to tell them what we see, not what we think. What good are we if we’re afraid to do it?
The American Press Is Destroying Itself
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself
harkin (9c4571) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:37 pm_
‘found him to BE cautious.” Apologies for poor edit.
I also do not want to give the impression that the NSC and whomever, are not slow-rolling or otherwise gumming up the works. It would be insanity to dismiss possible shenanigans/corruption in the process.
Bolton is very probably not getting a fair shake. It can easily be true that the requisite sign-offs have yet to occur and that the process itself is deeply corrupt. It would not be the first time an author got screwed in this manner.
Ed from SFV (f64387) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:38 pmWhen you sign the papers to get a clearance, you agree that anything you write can be reviewed for classified content. I don’t think this creates an explicit prior restraint though. In a standard non-disclosure agreement the result of disclosure is usually having to pay damages. Since there are laws regarding unauthorized disclosure of classified information, a book published with such could well land the author (and possibly publisher) in jail. Probably won’t, but it could.
Only if a serious national security issue was involved (e.g. spilling the beans on the country’s fallback position in ongoing negotiations) would prior restraint be warranted.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:56 pmAs it stands, though, Trump is really just drumming up interest in the book.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:56 pmIf the GOP has any sense, they will find a way to change candidates.
Yes.
Kanye 2020!
No.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:58 pm“Has it ever occurred to Donald Trump that maybe everyone else isn’t the problem: he is.”
Inconceivable!
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/15/2020 @ 6:00 pmNow, suppose that Kim gave Trump a suitcase full of $100 bills, and Bolton mentions it. Is it illegal to receive counterfeit money as a bribe?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 6/15/2020 @ 6:02 pmThree problems with this analysis.
1) Trump cares a lot what Bolton thinks. In fact he’s flipping out about it. A lot of people care what Bolton thinks.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 6:29 pm2) There’s an election coming up. Same people who told us impeachment isn’t necessary because an election is coming soon shouldn’t tell us that we can just wait till after the election to learn what Trump is really doing.
3) The GOP has done a lot to shut down whistleblowers. Doxxing them. Calling their criticisms ‘classified’ so they can’t be spoken in public. If the government already took the classified data out of Bolton’s book then this is not a good-faith concern. And Trump tweets so much classified stuff it’s weird that his fans are so worried about it now. Do we think Bolton’s publishing codes and protocols, or is he just going to warn us about Trump and Putin?
Bolton could have testified before Congress and have the House back him. But no, that might cut into his future sales. Fuck him.
Victor (a225f9) — 6/15/2020 @ 6:33 pm17. Ed from SFV (f64387) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:50 pm
The position of the publisher is that approval is being stalled.
Review for classification is not done by poeole at the political level. Bolton has already made changes, and then more changes. All that remains is formal approval – or a list of further objections. The White House has supplied neither. So the publisher said it would go ahead.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/10/us/politics/10reuters-usa-trump-bolton.html
So apparently now they said they are going to send him a letter June 19.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/trump-john-bolton-book.html
I think there are 3 issues involved.
1. Conversations with the president: Not ipso facto classified but may be subject to judge made rule of executive r=privilege. Executive privilege protects the adviser from being legally forced to disclose information after being subpoenaed but cannot stop the adviser from volunrarily disclosing the conversation.
2. A subpoena by Congress: Can override classification.
3. A non disclosure agreement: It has nothing to do with classification. It alone cannot prevent publication but might allow money to forfeited as a result off a lawsuit. Not applicable in case of subpoena.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:00 pmTrump: “I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified”
Of course you will.
NDA’s. Defiance of subpoenas. Shutting down publication of books. He has never had to live by the rules. And since we all know he has done more than any other mere president, he need not be bound by presidential norms.
noel (4d3313) — 6/16/2020 @ 3:53 amTrump asked AG Barr to weigh in on John Bolton’s book release. Barr said there is a process for clearing books, adding that Bolton “hasn’t completed the process.”
Didn’t you just hear the President, Mr. Barr? He said “every” conversation is “highly” classified.
noel (4d3313) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:04 amJust think of the number of staff and high level appointees who have heard presidential conversations and quoted from them or wrote about them. OMG. Releasing “highly classified” information? Lock em up?
Lawyer up folks.
noel (4d3313) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:16 amHe wanted Russia’s help in finding Clinton’s emails. In fact, he talked about those emails again in this same news conference with Barr, yesterday. But Trump wants to have all of HIS conversations classified. “Highly classified”.
noel (4d3313) — 6/16/2020 @ 5:12 am@33
Email correspondence *are classified* between POTUS and staffers.
We learned this years ago during HRC’s email saga.
So, any contemporaneous notes/summation of conversations between Bolton and Trump may actually be confidential as well.
Maintaining confidentiality is a good thing as it allows current/future adviser to give sound/unvarnished advise to the POTUS.
whembly (c30c83) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:01 amBy this you mean, maybe be classified, or not, right? Because reality matters.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:27 amCan he declare all conversations with him “highly classified” to hide embarrassment or cover illegal activity? I doubt it but the President has wide authority to classify documents. I believe that is true. And yet another reason to never, ever allow a person with zero ethics to sit in that Oval Office again.
I am once again reminded of the 2016 debates. While I am not a fan of Hillary, she had him exactly right…
“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” Mrs. Clinton observed. And Trump replied, “Because, you’d be in jail.”
Rule of the narcissist. He is the law.
noel (4d3313) — 6/16/2020 @ 10:53 amnoel’s got a great point. Trump’s presidential campaign was that Hillary’s communications, no matter how classified, should be hacked by Russia and leaked to help him win power (to help Putin with).
I wonder how much of this Bolton has anticipated. It’s going to be amusing watching the Trump administration fight the former Trump administration over what the people have a right to know about Trump and Putin.
i mean it will be amusing until Trump is somehow re-elected from some insane turn of events in October that some conference room in siberia is drawing out on a dry erase board.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/16/2020 @ 10:58 ammean it will be amusing until Trump is somehow re-elected from some insane turn of events in October that some conference room in siberia is drawing out on a dry erase board.
Not in Siberia. In the Supreme Court. Gorsuch is already drafting the opinion to overturn the outcome in the event Biden is elected, based on his reading of Article II, Section 1:
Biden, being a person, will be disqualified.
nk (1d9030) — 6/16/2020 @ 11:16 am@35
There’s a presumption that they’re classified. Which, if you think about it completely makes sense.
See the story regarding Anthony Weiner’s laptop, where Huma had email correspondences between HRC and Obama. Susan Rice remarked, in shock, that those are classified.
So, my question originally was if that applied in this case (it’s not an electronic correspondence, and contemporary accounting of a staffer’s deliberations with the POTUS).
I think this is an EO directive, but I’m not sure if that’s in effect in this current administration.
whembly (c30c83) — 6/16/2020 @ 11:26 am@37
This is why Trump is so infuriating to some and others are nonplussed.
Those whom are nonplussed took that was Trump being sarcastic.
Those whom are infuriated by Trump took it as a request/directive.
A literal rorschach test.
FWIW: The DNC server was already hacked by that famous campaign speech. So… (insert the HRC shruggie gif)
whembly (c30c83) — 6/16/2020 @ 11:31 amIt’s an integrity test. Trump has spent years doing bizarre things to help Putin. Just look at Trump’s kurd flip flop, timed perfectly with Russia’s troop movements.
Trump also bragged his devoted supporters will permit murder in broad daylight. Doesn’t matter. They would find a way to tell me it’s obviously my infuriated bias that has a problem with Trump.
It isn’t infuriating so much as disappointing. There is no stopping an sociopath from slipping through the cracks. But the checks and balances could save us. The GOP senate is a lot like those three cowards watching Chauvin murder someone. So is that pathetic Pence. Barr.
So Trump asked Putin to release classified information. Even if you were correct, and Trump was merely jokingly asking Russia to hack and leak classified material, being a troll is no way to unite and lead a country. Trump sure seems really good at accidentally hurting the USA and helping Russia.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/16/2020 @ 11:43 amwhembly (c30c83) — 6/16/2020 @ 11:31 am
So, some people are infuriated, and some people are perplexed?
If Trump perplexes them so much, how could they conclude he was being sarcastic? Usually, when someone perplexes me, I don’t draw any conclusions about their intentions. Because I can’t.
Demosthenes (7fae81) — 6/16/2020 @ 3:32 pmTrump Administration Sues to Try to Delay Publication of Bolton’s Book
The Trump administration sued the former national security adviser John R. Bolton on Tuesday to try to delay the publication of his highly anticipated memoir about his time in the White House, saying it contained classified information that would compromise national security if it became public.
….
Mr. Bolton “had negotiated a book deal allegedly worth about $2 million and had drafted a 500-plus-page manuscript rife with classified information, which he proposed to release to the world,” the Justice Department said in a lawsuit against Mr. Bolton filed in federal court in Washington.
…..
On Monday, Mr. Trump accused Mr. Bolton of violating policies related to classified information by moving ahead with the book.
But the book has already been printed and bound and has shipped to warehouses, which could make it more difficult for the administration to stop Mr. Bolton’s account from becoming public.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 6/16/2020 @ 3:57 pm…..
Barr makes his move.
Hopefully, the courts will fast-track Barr’s maneuver.
Paul Montagu (d27749) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:04 pmAre you using nonplussed in the dictionary sense, which is bewildered or confused? Or are you using it as being unfazed? I think you mean the latter but I don’t think that is the correct meaning of the word. It would explain a lot, though.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:06 pmBy this you mean it may be classified, or not, it depends.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:17 pmThe reports say Bolton is being sued for breach of contract, which sounds like it is grounded in the NDA. If so, I think it would be very hard to succeed in a prior restraint lawsuit. There must be more claims.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:26 pmYou can read the lawsuit here.
I don’t see any national security claims, it’s about his contractual and fiduciary duty, and establish a constructive trust for the revenue of the book. So what, exactly, is the point?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:42 pmSnepp v. United States (1980).
nk (1d9030) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:55 pmLike all the other thousands of lawsuits Trump has lost, it’s in terrorem. Not expecting to win, but to scare people off with the costs of litigation and the possibility, however remote, of a judgment. “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”
nk (1d9030) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:58 pmMaybe the point is money. Trump wants it.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/16/2020 @ 5:01 pmThe lawsuit doesn’t seem to be suing based on an NDA but on government employment documents that require prepublication review before books can be published by current or former employees.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/16/2020 @ 5:08 pmSo this is in part a delaying tactic.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/16/2020 @ 5:08 pmWalrus Gumbo’s a shiny object; but not very bright.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/16/2020 @ 5:18 pmI have a copy on pre-order.
Looking for an attorney to sue Trump for interference in a business relationship.
30% contingency. Please send an up-to-date CV and three references.
Dave (1bb933) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:25 pm