The lawsuit over whether the federal government can receive Bolton’s proceeds from the book will continue.
Bolton states that he did not intend to reveal confidential information and believed the Trump administration confidential information about the president after the book went through almost all necessary approval steps. The book approval officer Bolton worked with supported his version of the case, saying through his lawyer that Trump’s allies sought to protect the president.
DC District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled on Thursday that Bolton’s collection of evidence will be tightly controlled in his court. He will be able to seek some evidence from government officials first and must obtain the judge’s approval before proceeding.
“Bolton can make discoveries only based on his claims that President Trump or senior White House officials acted in bad faith, intentionally delaying the pre-publication review and trying to unduly influence classification decisions,” wrote Lamberth.
The Bolton book – a major damaging moment for Trump politically during an election year – is one of the episodes that also generated significant criticism of the Trump administration’s politicization of the intelligence community and the Department of Justice.
Former Attorney General William Barr signed a White House request to sue to prevent the publication of Bolton’s book, an extraordinary measure days before its release.
In line with his indirect approach outside his political circle, Barr sent current attorney general Jeffrey Rosen to discuss with the department’s lawyers how they should file the case against Bolton, according to a person familiar with handling the case. The lawyers reported that an attempt to prevent the publication of Bolton’s book was unsuccessful. His concerns were ignored and Barr signed the suit, the person said. This part of the action, which aims to prevent publication, failed because the book was already in the hands of booksellers.