The White House is now formally trying to get John Bolton to halt publication of his book, or else. CNN reports:
The White House has issued a formal threat to former national security adviser John Bolton to keep him from publishing his book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
The White House had no comment. Neither Bolton nor a spokesman for the publisher, Simon & Schuster, responded to a request for comment.
The letter comes in the midst of President Donald Trump attacking Bolton on Twitter, and Bolton’s lawyer accusing the White House of corrupting the vetting process for Bolton’s book by sharing the contents of the book with those outside the National Security Council’s Records Management Division.
Anyone who thinks John Bolton deliberately filled his book with classified as a damn fool, but this White House is staffed of course by damn fools https://t.co/UOD4StDW2a
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) January 29, 2020
Nothing says "not guilty" like threatening a former staffer for writing about the conduct that is the subject of your impeachment trialhttps://t.co/1AIkfmx5My
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) January 29, 2020
Trump doing his level best to implicate Senate Republicans in the coverup nearly all of them are prepared to complete. https://t.co/SWDnHsYDDx
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) January 29, 2020
Keep in mind that if the White House is using the pre-publican review process to prevent publication of Bolton's book, the process does not apply to testimony or interviews. They cannot stop Bolton from telling the story. https://t.co/ilXed8WRm0
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) January 29, 2020
CNN is reporting the White House threatening Bolton to keep him from publishing his book. Can see the Simon & Schuster advertising campaign now: THE BOOK THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ!
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) January 29, 2020
White House moves to delay publication of Bolton’s book, which reportedly describes Trump directly tying the release of Ukraine aid money to an announcement of an investigation of Biden https://t.co/NzrRO1c20y
— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) January 29, 2020
BREAKING: The White House has issued a formal threat to John Bolton to keep him from publishing his book.
In other words, they have just given Bolton's book the biggest commercial they ever could have.#WeWantWitnesses
— Ms. Krassenstein (@HKrassenstein) January 29, 2020
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.