No self-respecting judge would order Bolton to halt publication of his book.

[Zorro]

IN A lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Justice Department insists that it wants to stop former national security adviser John Bolton from damaging national security by revealing secret information in his forthcoming book, “The Room Where It Happened.” In fact, the primary danger is to President Trump, who, if early leaks are any indication, has much to fear from an unvarnished account of his behavior. The suit is absurd, and the Justice Department should be ashamed to be associated with a clear attempt to harass a man trying to detail Mr. Trump’s malfeasance.

The Post reported Wednesday that, based on Mr. Bolton’s account, Mr. Trump pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, telling Mr. Xi during a summit dinner last year that increased agricultural purchases by Beijing from U.S. farmers would aid Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects. Mr. Bolton’s manuscript laments that he was unable to relate Mr. Trump’s precise words because the administration demanded them struck during a prepublication review.

Indeed, Mr. Bolton worked painstakingly with the National Security Council’s chief classification official to scrub the book, a process that consumed four months. While this review proceeded, Mr.
Trump insisted that the book must not be published before the November election, and, nonsensically, that all of his conversations with Mr. Bolton were classified. Unsurprisingly, after Mr. Bolton’s manuscript was scrubbed, another Trump official swooped in to insist that further review was necessary. Reasonably concluding that the administration was using the process as pretext to silence him, Mr. Bolton decided to publish.

The long delay has already hurt the public debate. It would have been helpful if Mr. Bolton’s book had emerged, or Mr. Bolton had testified, when Congress was considering Mr. Trump’s impeachment. The Xi revelations suggest that Mr. Trump sought to manipulate U.S. foreign policy with China, as with Ukraine, for his own personal gain. In fact, writes Mr. Bolton, “I am hard pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/free-speech--not-national-security--is-at-stake-in-trumps-absurd-lawsuit-against-john-boltons-book/2020/06/17/e600beb8-b0d2-11ea-8758-bfd1d045525a_story.html

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Moscow Mitch appointees are not only not self respecting, they are not even lawyers, really

I mean how can you claim to be a lawyer that respects the law then take a job you know you are unqualified for that will harm the law?

[ScratchCat]

2. I'm sure someone has pointed this out

The manuscript has already been given to numerous reporters and media-types. They signed a NDA to received it, promising not to reveal the contents until it has been published. The problem this creates is, if what is in the manuscript was in deed classified, Bolton would have already violated the law and DOJ would be preparing charges. But since the they aren't, you can conclude that there is no actual classified information in the manuscript.

And again, this involves prior restraint. The publisher can publish the book and their isn't a damn thing Billy Barr and his Fake DOJ can do about it as no court would side with DOJ.

[yellowcanine]

3. That's no comfort. Trumpy's appointees may not be self respecting.

Just sayin'.