The White House has asked a federal judge to order former national security adviser John Bolton to stop the publication of his upcoming book on his White House tenure, arguing that Bolton will be breaching a contract he signed with the Trump administration and was risking the exposure of classified information if he released the book.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday evening in Washington, DC, federal court, alleges that Bolton’s 500-plus page manuscript was “rife with classified information,” and that Bolton backed out of an ongoing White House vetting process for the book that he’d been obligated to do as a result of agreements he’d signed.
“(Bolton) struck a bargain 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 that bargain by unilaterally deciding that the prepublication review process is complete and deciding for himself whether classified information should be made public,” prosecutors write.
Bolton was fired last year by Trump for allegedly pressuring the billionaire businessman to go into a war with Iran and North Korea. After his sack, he then revealed plans of writing a tell-all book of his time at the White House, which Trump claims is an infringement of the non-disclosure agreement he signed before being employed.
The White House also claims Bolton will be revealing National security information with the release of the book scheduled for June 23.
Simon & Schuster , the book’s publishers, previously announced that Bolton’s book, “In the Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” would be released on June 23 as the book has already shipped to warehouses ahead of its scheduled release.
Reports claim Bolton is intent on publishing the book as scheduled, meaning he expects to deal with any ramifications from the administration in the aftermath, not before.
