Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Tuesday said he has known former National Security Adviser John Bolton for many years and thinks his publishing of a tell-all book about his work in the White House is "so totally out of character for him," and that he has a "real potential legal problem moving forward."
"I think that there is a very serious issue about executive privilege," Gingrich said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" about Bolton's book, "The Room Where it Happened," a memoir of his time in and near the Oval Office.
President Donald Trump on Monday warned that Bolton could face "a very strong criminal problem" if his book hits the shelves as planned on June 23, as he considers all conversations with himself as president "highly classified."
"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," Trump said. He added that Bolton would have an issue with "criminal liability" if the book comes out without first being cleared by the government.
Attorney General William Barr also said that the administration does not believe that "necessary deletions of classified information" have taken place, putting Bolton in violation of agreements on the book.
"I don't think the attorney general is speaking for President Trump as a candidate," said Gingrich. "The attorney general says we have a set of laws and a set of agreements, and you have to go through this process, so why shouldn't John Bolton have to go through this process? It's not up to his publisher to decide whether or not they've gone through the process. It's a legal problem, it's not a PR problem."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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