Chuck Cooper, the attorney for John Bolton, claims President Donald Trump “doesn’t want” the former national security adviser’s book to be published.
But Cooper, in a column posted by The Wall Street Journal, vowed to move ahead with the book’s publication.
The book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” was originally set for publication in March, Cooper said. But the book’s publisher had to push back the publication date to June 23 while the manuscript underwent “prepublication review” by the National Security Council (NSC).
“The purpose of prepublication review is to protect national-security secrets,” he said. “Regulations disallow its use ‘to prevent embarrassment to a person.’ Yet that’s how the White House has used the process in this case."
Bolton "took care as he wrote to avoid revealing anything that might be classified," Cooper maintained.
Cooper pointed out the manuscript was submitted to the NSC for review on Dec. 30 – just days after the House had impeached Trump “and amid speculation that the Senate would subpoena Mr. Bolton to testify.”
“Because the manuscript includes a chapter about Ukraine — the subject of the impeachment— the risk that Mr. Trump and his aides would commandeer prepublication review was obvious,” he said.
Cooper said a June 8 letter from John Eisenberg, the president’s deputy counsel, claimed the manuscript contained classified information.
“This is a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr. Bolton, in violation of his constitutional right to speak on matters of the utmost public import,” he said. “This attempt will not succeed, and Mr. Bolton’s book will be published June 23.”