US President Trump: Former adviser Bolton faces charges if book released

President Donald Trump said Monday that his former national security viser, John Bolton, could face a “criminal problem” if he doesn't halt plans to publish a new book that describes scattershot, sometimes dangerous, decision-making by a president focused only on getting re-elected.

Trump said it would be up to Attorney General William Barr to issue any charges, but hinted that matter would end up in court. “We'll see what happens. y're in court — or y'll soon be in court," Trump said about book, set to be released early next week.

president accused Bolton of t completing a pre-publication review to make sure book does t contain classified material. That contricts statements from Bolton's attorney, Chuck Cooper, who says his client worked painstakingly for months with classification specialists at White House National Security Council to make changes to avoid releasing classified material.

Barr echoed Trump's accusation. During an event at White House, attorney general said ministration officials who have access to sensitive information typically sign n-disclosure agreements that require m to go through a clearance process before y can publish something based on information y accessed in job.

“We don’t believe that Bolton went through that process — hasn’t completed process — and, refore, is in violation of that agreement,” Barr said. Trump ministration is “trying to get m to complete process — go through process — and make necessary deletions of classified information,” Barr said.

Bolton's book, “ Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” was supposed to be released in March. Its release date was twice delayed and it is w set to be released next week by publisher Simon & Schuster.

“Bolton covers an array of topics — chaos in White House, sure, but also assessments of major players, president’s inconsistent, scattershot decision-making process, and his dealings with allies and enemies alike, from China, Russia, Ukraine, rth Korea, Iran, United Kingdom, France, and Germany,” according to publisher.

“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” Bolton writes in book, according to a news release from publisher.

In a recent op-ed published in Wall Street Journal, Cooper accused White House of using pre-publication review process as a way to protect president from embarrassment.

He said he sent Bolton's manuscript to classification specialist Ellen Knight on Dec. 30, 2019. Knight and Bolton, who was Trump's national security viser for 18 months ending Sept. 10, 2019, spent nearly four months going through nearly 500-p book multiple times, “often line by line,” Cooper said.

In a March 27 letter, Knight thanked Bolton for his efforts to dress classification issues, but said ditional edits were required to ensure national security information was protected. She outlined her concerns in 17 single-d ps of d comments, Cooper said. He said Bolton worked through that weekend and sent Knight a response following Monday. Bolton accepted most of Knight’s suggestions and proposed alternative solutions to ors, Cooper said.

In mid-April, after resolving a shorter list of remaining issues, it appeared that pre-publication review process h been finalized. Yet when Bolton asked for a letter confirming his book was cleared for publication, Cooper said his client was told his book h prompted “very delicate” interactions at White House and re remained “some internal process considerations to work through.”

Knight said she thought letter might be rey soon, but more than six weeks later, Bolton still hasn’t received it. On June 8, Bolton got a letter from John Eisenberg, president’s deputy counsel for national security, who claimed that Bolton’s manuscript still contained classified information and that publishing book would violate his ndisclosure agreements.

“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 utmost public import,” according to Cooper. “This attempt will t succeed, and Mr. Bolton’s book will be published June 23.”