The Justice Department is pursuing an emergency order to block the publication of John Bolton’s book.
The order would formally issue an injunction against the publication of the former national security adviser’s bombshell tell-all from inside the White House — a move Bolton’s publisher Simon & Schuster called a “politically motivated exercise in futility.”
The emergency order would ramp up the White House’s legal battle against Bolton after the Trump administration on Tuesday filed a civil suit against Bolton, requesting a court to delay its scheduled release for June 23.
“Tonight’s filing by the government is a frivolous, politically motivated exercise in futility,” Simon & Schuster, said in a statement. “Hundreds of thousands of copies of John Bolton’s ‘The Room Where It Happened‘ have already been distributed around the country and the world. The injunction as requested by the government would accomplish nothing.”
Bolton’s office and Simon & Schuster have promoted Bolton’s work as “the book Donald Trump doesn’t want you to read,” promising it is filled with embarrassing and controversial stories from Bolton’s time in the White House.
John Ratcliffe, Trump’s director of national intelligence, issued a statement Wednesday night saying Bolton’s “unauthorized disclosures of classified information damages our national security and threaten the sources and methods the Intelligence Community relies upon to safeguard the American people.”