"The Government cannot plausibly argue that Ambassador Bolton has power to stop the Amazon delivery trucks in America, unshelve the copies in Europe, commandeer the copies in Canada, and repossess the copies sent to reviewers or in the possession of major newspapers," Bolton's lawyers argue.
DOJ contends that Bolton's book is loaded with highly classified information that would damage national security if released, but Bolton's attorneys contend government lawyers and top national security officials are embarked on nothing more than a political errand.
"The Government, at the behest of the White House, asks this Court to issue a prior restraint order suppressing the speech of his former National Security adviser ... for the transparent purpose of preventing Ambassador Bolton from revealing embarrassing facts about the President's conduct in office."
While the filing late Thursday night from Bolton lawyers Chuck Cooper and Michael Kirk is replete with rhetoric about the high principles of the First Amendment, the hearing U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth is set to hold Friday seems likely to focus on whether the temporary restraining order Justice Department lawyers are seeking will have any practical effect or amounts to a form of legal posturing.
Bolton's submission to the court says such an order would be pointless since - in advance of the book's scheduled publication date Tuesday - the contents of the book are already about in the national press and physical copies have even reached the White House grounds.
"The Government is asking the Court to order Ambassador Bolton to do something he is powerless to do. The practical reality is that neither Ambassador Bolton nor his publisher, Simon & Schuster, has any ability to stop copies from being sold to the general public on June 23," Cooper and Kirk wrote.
"Indeed, the surreal nature of the Government's request to enjoin publication and distribution of the book was driven home earlier today when a CBS News reporter, holding a copy of the book in her hand, questioned the President's press secretary about passages in the book on the White House lawn," the attorneys added.
Bolton, in particular, takes issue with the claim his book contains highly classified "compartmented" intelligence, which would trigger a higher standard of review. Bolton says he took great care to exclude such intelligence and submitted to a painstaking review with a White House national security official, Ellen Knight, to be certain. Knight concluded in April that the book contained no more classified information.
But Bolton says the process went off the rails shortly thereafter, when top aides to Trump intervened and initiated another layer of review, with the entire process delaying publication by several months.
Accompanying the filing are Bolton's communications with Knight throughout the review process, as well as extensive handwritten and typed notes of their conversations and proposed edits to eliminate classified information.
Bolton's book alleges that Trump encouraged China's construction of camps for its Uighur population, and that he pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to purchase American agricultural products in order to aid his reelection. It also describes efforts by Trump to offer favors to autocratic leaders and affirms House Democrats' impeachment evidence that Trump pressured the European ally to investigate his political rivals in exchange for military assistance.
Bolton insists that he put the wheels in motion to publish his book in April, when Knight first indicated it contained no more classified material.
"Thus, at the time Ambassador Bolton proceeded with publishing his book-a decision that has long-since become irrevocable-he had absolutely no reason to believe that the book contained [compartmented intelligence," Bolton's attorneys write. "Indeed, quite the opposite: the Government had given him every reason to believe that it agreed with him that the book did not contain SCI."
All Rights Reserved © 2024
