Trump says Bolton could face criminal liability for book
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Trump said Monday that former national security adviser John Bolton could face criminal liability if his memoir is released, asserting that the book contains classified material.
Eight days before Bolton's tell-all book was set to go on sale, Trump warned that the administration may "soon be in court."
"I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified," he told reporters at the White House. "So that would mean that, if he wrote a book and if the book gets out, he's broken the law, and I would think that he would have criminal problems. I hope so."
Trump's remarks come amid an escalating standoff between the White House and the longtime conservative foreign policy hand, who alleges in his memoir that the president committed "Ukraine-like transgressions" in a number of foreign policy decisions, according to details released by the publisher, Simon & Schuster.
The president is livid about the publication of the book and has been pushing his staff to take action to block it, White House officials said.
Members of the White House Counsel's Office spoke with Justice Department officials Monday about possible legal action, but it was unclear when such an action would happen.
Bolton's book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," is due to go on sale June 23 and has already been shipped to distribution centers across the country.
Bolton's attorney, Charles Cooper, has said that the memoir does not contain any classified material and that Bolton participated in an arduous review process to vet it for material that could endanger national security.
During an exchange with reporters Monday, Trump said it was "highly inappropriate" for his former national security adviser to write the book.
He was joined by Attorney General William P. Barr, who told reporters, "We don't believe Bolton has gone through the process" required to clear books by government officials on topics of national security.
"He hasn't completed the process," Barr said, adding that the administration is now trying to get Bolton to do so.
"This is unprecedented, really," the attorney general said. "I don't know of any book that has been published so quickly while the officeholders are still in government, and it's about very current events, current leaders and current policy issues, many of which are currently classified."
Legal experts said any court challenge by the administration would face stiff odds.
"A half-century ago, the Supreme Court rejected a similar attempt by the Nixon administration to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers, and since then, it has been firmly established that prior restraints on publication are unconstitutional and un-American," said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
Last week, the White House warned Bolton that his book needs further revision to comply with a review process required of government employees writing about national security and intelligence issues.
A letter to Bolton from John A. Eisenberg, a deputy White House counsel, noted that the former national security adviser signed a nondisclosure agreement when he began his White House service in April 2018.
In response, Cooper said his client scrupulously complied with national security vetting requirements. He and Bolton have said from the outset that the book did not contain classified material.
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One thing we can know from this story - Trump has seen the book and knows it will be damaging to his re-election prospects.
As the article tells us, Trump cant keep the truth from coming out. There is no "prior restraint" on books and newspapers and any media.
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Publish the book and let the chips fall where they may.
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Comment removed as per warning.
So yes, the NSCRMD vetted the book. Simon & Schuster and their lawyers and ViacomCBS and their lawyers
have approved the book for publication and sale on June 23,2020.
Bolton has as much chance of going to jail as Hillary Clinton or Bill Barr.
No try. Bolton needs permission from every agency he had clearance from. In the current atmosphere he will never get it, which means the book gets published with a ton of redactions,
or
He publishes unredacted and everyone goes to court resulting in Bolton losing any advance money and any revenues from book sales per current case law. Simon& Schuster and ViacomCBS have the final say on how & when the book is released.
Read the link?
Can't wait to read it. If Trump and Barr are this worried it's bound to be seriously damaging.
I've read a few of the other insider books on the Trump WH and none of them paint a pretty picture of Trump or his cronies.
Also looking forward to his niece's tell all book which is coming out right after Bolton's.
When it rains it pours.
What harm could one little book do....?
It continues to amaze me why the right continues to be so scared of those that buy their ink by the barrel.....
Not to be too far off topic but donalds niece is coming out with a book as well. When her father died they were screwed out of inheritance.
Never liked Bolton. A weird day when certain republicans will turn on anyone that dares to say anything negative about donald. They have moved so far to the right everything they see is a dark red.
It is getting to the point one cannot even call them republicans anymore.
The split between the semi-sane republicans and the completely insane far right began with Rush, Glenn, Fox and then the avalanche of far right blogs.
The insane were given a voice and It proved very profitable for Rupert Murdoch.
I think it goes all way back to the "Fairness Doctrine" eliminated under Regan. While it might not have been applicable to cable broadcasts, I can't help but think it gave a green light to start those same conservative talking heads that you listed. Up to then... every licensed broadcaster had to devote time for discussion of controversial issues and had to make a concerted effort to express contrasting viewpoints.
I don't think it was the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, though it may have played a part. I think it was the creation of the 24 hour cable news channel. News started making way to infotainment and this spread to networks and morning shows.
I'll buy into a piece of that EG.... The first Gulf War is what put CNN on the map with their 24 hour a day updates. Once the hunger for 24 hour news became evident.... others jumped on the train.
I always saw the fairness doctrine as flawed constitutionally but, yes, that was the beginning of far right wing media propaganda outlets.
I cringe every time one of those talking heads says, "This is what that means."
We can't even agree on the facts/data, nor the source of the facts/data anymore. Given the noise from the internet with the lies that can go around the world in seconds....
I say let the book come out..... The fact that Trump is scared of it speaks volumes.
You do know that Cronkite was very conservative.... right?
You'd never know it because he reported facts as did Huntly, Brinkly, Chancellor, and Safer Today the names are Stahl, Mitchel and Holt.
Leftist propaganda my ass... Ignorance comes from listening to the outright PROVEN lies of Rush, Hannity, Beck, and O'Reilly.
The easily led accept the Fox Et Al lies because the homework to refute them is too much effort. Call it intellectual laziness.
Let's remember, Donald Trump has seen the contents of this book , and had the implications of the book explained to him by his political advisers. THAT is why he is worried about "classified " information.