An attempt at prior restraint, which we covered in Chapter 4.
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In a statement, Simon & Schuster said the lawsuit “is nothing more than the latest in a long-running series of efforts by the Administration to quash publication of a book it deems unflattering to the president”.
The lawsuit alleges that Bolton’s manuscript is “rife with classified information” and alleges that Bolton backed out of a White House vetting process for the book.
The justice department is requesting that a federal court order Bolton to “instruct or request” that his publisher further delay publication of the book to allow for a completion of the national security review process and to “retrieve and dispose” of existing copies in a manner acceptable to the government. The justice department also is asking a federal court to grant it the rights to all proceeds Bolton earns from the publication of the book.
Bolton’s lawyer Charles Cooper has said that the administration’s efforts to block publication are “a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr Bolton, in violation of his constitutional rights to speak on matters of the utmost public import”. Cooper has said Bolton worked for months with classification specialists to avoid releasing classified material.
The widely anticipated book is set to make explosive claims about the Trump White House, including that the president has committed “Ukraine-like transgressions” across his entire foreign policy.
