Throughout the process of publishing John Bolton’s revealing memories of his time in the Trump administration, the Justice Department tried to thwart the former national security adviser’s post-White House project.
First came the lawsuit before the book was published, trying to stop him from leaving, an attempt that failed when a federal judge rejected the effort because the copies had already been distributed. Then came the department’s separate request to force Bolton to lose his $ 2 million advance, a possibility that the same federal judge left open in June. Now the Wall Street Journal and new york Times report that the DOJ opened a criminal investigation against the former cabinet member to determine whether he illegally disclosed confidential information in his memoirs. The department has already convened a grand jury and issued subpoenas to the agent and editor of Bolton’s book for records of communications with the author.
In April, the book – which claims that Trump asked President Xi to interfere in the 2020 election and said reporters should be “executed” – passed a lawsuit in which the National Security Council signals any confidential information in the manuscript. But when Bolton asked for the final release, he received no response from the NSC’s chief official to review the pre-publication. While Bolton and publisher Simon & Schuster considered this a go-ahead, a political appointee who had never conducted a pre-publication review read the manuscript again in May and found various confidential information in that second process without notifying the author.
Like New York Times notes, there was some disagreement within the DOJ about the decision: “The lawyers for the National Security Council and the Department of Justice expressed reservations about opening a criminal case, partly because Mr. Trump’s public statements made it look like a openly political act, according to two officials informed about the discussions. ”These public statements include Trump calling Bolton a “shameful faded” and a “scoundrel who should be in prison”.