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Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into John Bolton’s Book Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into John Bolton’s Book
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether President Trump’s former national security adviser John R. Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information in a memoir this summer, a case that the department opened after it failed to stop the book’s publication, according to three people familiar with the matter. WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether President Trump’s former national security adviser John R. Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information in a memoir this summer, an inquiry that the department began after it failed to stop the book’s publication, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The department has convened a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for communications records from Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Mr. Bolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.” In the book, Mr. Bolton delivered a highly unflattering account of his 17 months working in the Trump administration. The department has convened a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for communications records from Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Mr. Bolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.” The Javelin Agency, which represents Mr. Bolton, also received a subpoena, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The investigation is a significant escalation in the fraught publication of the book. The Trump administration had sought to stop its publication, accusing Mr. Bolton in a lawsuit of moving forward with publication without receiving final notice that a prepublication review to scrub out classified information was complete. The director of national intelligence referred the matter to the Justice Department last month, two of the people said. John Demers, the head of the department’s national security division, then opened the criminal investigation, according to a person briefed on the case.. The inquiry is a significant escalation of the turmoil over the publication of the book, whose highly unflattering account of Mr. Bolton’s 17 months in the White House prompted Mr. Trump to attack him and call for his prosecution even as the Justice Department sued earlier to try to stop its release.
Mr. Bolton has denied that he published classified information. Representatives for the Justice Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council declined to comment. The disclosures about the criminal investigation into Mr. Bolton’s memoir also come amid a flurry of other new books by onetime Trump advisers, former law enforcement officials, journalists and others that are critical of Mr. Trump and reveal harsh new details about his 2016 campaign and his first term as he seeks re-election.
After a judge rejected the department’s allegations that Mr. Bolton moved forward with publication without final notice that a review to scrub out classified information was complete, the director of national intelligence referred the matter to the Justice Department last month, two of the people said. John Demers, the head of the department’s national security division, then opened the criminal investigation.
Mr. Bolton denied that he published classified information. “Ambassador Bolton emphatically rejects any claim that he acted improperly, let alone criminally, in connection with the publication of his book, and he will cooperate fully, as he has throughout, with any official inquiry into his conduct,” his lawyer Charles J. Cooper said in a statement.
Representatives for the Justice Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council declined to comment, as did Simon & Schuster. Javelin did not return calls and emails for comment.
Mr. Bolton’s account of his time working for Mr. Trump and his efforts to get the book published set off a furor. He confirmed elements of the Ukraine scheme that prompted impeachment, wrote that the president was willing to intervene in criminal investigations to curry favor with foreign dictators and said he sought China’s help in winning re-election.Mr. Bolton’s account of his time working for Mr. Trump and his efforts to get the book published set off a furor. He confirmed elements of the Ukraine scheme that prompted impeachment, wrote that the president was willing to intervene in criminal investigations to curry favor with foreign dictators and said he sought China’s help in winning re-election.
Mr. Trump has made clear that he wants his former aide prosecuted. He said on Twitter that Mr. Bolton “broke the law” and “should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.” He has also called Mr. Bolton “a dope,” “incompetent” and the book “a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad.” Mr. Cooper has accused the administration of slow-walking the review process to keep Mr. Bolton from revealing embarrassing information about Mr. Trump. Administration officials have said they uncovered legitimate instances of unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
Lawyers for the National Security Council and the Justice Department expressed reservations about opening a criminal case, in part because Mr. Trump’s public statements made it seem like an overtly political act, according to two officials briefed on the discussions. Others noted that a federal judge this summer said that Mr. Bolton may have broken the law, and that the case had merit. Mr. Trump has made clear that he wants his former aide prosecuted. He has said on Twitter that Mr. Bolton “broke the law” and “should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.” He has also called Mr. Bolton “a dope,” “incompetent” and the book “a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad.”
Mr. Bolton had agreed to let national security officials review any book he might eventually write before publication in order to make sure that it contained no classified information. The department accused Mr. Bolton of giving Simon & Schuster permission to publish his book before he had official signoff that his prepublication review was complete. It also sued to halt publication. Lawyers for the National Security Council and the Justice Department expressed reservations about opening a criminal case, in part because Mr. Trump’s public statements made it seem like an overtly political act, according to two officials briefed on the discussions. But others noted that the federal judge in the lawsuit this summer said Mr. Bolton may have broken the law, and that the case had merit.
But the department sued Mr. Bolton just a week before his book was set to hit retailers in June, and a federal judge said that it was too late to keep the book out of the hands of readers. The president hired Mr. Bolton, a combative, hard-line adviser, in 2018 to tackle mounting challenges from Iran, North Korea and other adversaries. As has been the case with Mr. Trump and other aides, their relationship eventually soured as Mr. Bolton tried to keep the president from making what he viewed as unsound deals with American enemies and Mr. Trump chafed at the approach.
“With hundreds of thousands of copies around the globe — many in newsrooms — the damage is done,” wrote Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia. Mr. Bolton, the ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush, left the White House a year ago and signed a deal last fall with Simon & Schuster to write a memoir of his time there.
But in his opinion, Judge Lamberth also suggested that Mr. Bolton could be criminally prosecuted if he did indeed allow the book to be published before he received final official notice that the government’s review was complete. Mr. Bolton had submitted a copy of his manuscript in December to the National Security Council’s top official for prepublication review, Ellen J. Knight. When Mr. Bolton became national security adviser, he had signed a standard nondisclosure agreement that bound any book he might eventually write to a mandatory review to ensure that it contained no classified information.
“Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States,” Judge Lamberth wrote. “He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability. But these facts do not control the motion before the court.” Such an agreement is routine for national security officials as a condition of gaining a security clearance and access to classified information.
After viewing classified declarations and discussing them in a closed hearing, Judge Lamberth also said that he was “persuaded that defendant Bolton likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations.” Ms. Knight told Mr. Bolton in April that he had satisfied her requests for edits to the manuscript, according to court documents. But when asked when he could expect a letter confirming that the review was complete, Ms. Knight gave no clear answer.
Mr. Bolton’s lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, rejected the judge’s view. “We respectfully take issue, however, with the court’s preliminary conclusion at this early stage of the case that Ambassador Bolton did not comply fully with his contractual prepublication obligation to the government,” Mr. Cooper said in a statement this summer. “The full story of these events has yet to be told — but it will be.” Eventually, Mr. Bolton told Simon & Schuster to publish the book based on Ms. Knight’s April statement that she was finished.
At issue is whether Mr. Bolton received signoff from the government that prepublication review process was complete. But without notifying Mr. Bolton, the White House had initiated another review in May, overseen by Michael Ellis, a political appointee who had never conducted a prepublication review. Mr. Ellis said in an affidavit that he found multiple instances of classified information in the manuscript.
Mr. Cooper has accused the administration of slow-walking the process in order to keep Mr. Bolton from revealing embarrassing information about Mr. Trump. The administration has said that Mr. Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information. The government also suggested to the court that Mr. Ellis had since 2017 had “original classification authority,” a designation that would allow him to make decisions to classify material. But the administration later recanted, saying in a filing that Mr. Ellis did not receive that authority until June, after he had reviewed the book.
In an email, the National Security Council’s top official for prepublication review said she was satisfied with the edits that Mr. Bolton had made to address her concerns about classified information. Weeks before the book was to go on sale, the National Security Council told Mr. Bolton in June that his manuscript still contained classified information and would need further edits. Mr. Cooper declared that the Trump administration was attempting to suppress the book and its critical portrayal of the president and said it was already printed, bound and shipped to booksellers nationwide.
But the White House initiated another review without notifying Mr. Bolton, and the official involved in that review said in an affidavit that he found multiple instances of classified information in the manuscript as part of that process. The administration escalated the battle, suing Mr. Bolton that month to stop distribution. Department lawyers accused Mr. Bolton of giving Simon & Schuster permission to publish his book before he had official signoff that the review was complete and insisted that the book still contains classified information whose disclosure could damage American interests.
Even though Mr. Bolton did not receive a final approval letter from the White House, he told Simon & Schuster to publish anyway. Gen. Paul Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency, said in an affidavit that he had “identified classified information” in the portion of the manuscript that he had read.
Separate from the criminal investigation, Mr. Bolton still faces civil litigation that could force him to forfeit the proceeds from his book to the government, as punishment for breaching his prepublication review agreement. General Nakasone did not detail the passages but warned that “compromise of this information” could cause the government to lose an unspecified source of electronic intelligence and “cause irreparable damage” to its ability to gather such intelligence.
Judge Lamberth, who is overseeing the litigation over the book proceeds, wrote in June that Mr. Bolton could have sued the government instead of unilaterally publishing if he was unhappy with the delay. But the lawsuit was filed just a week before Mr. Bolton’s memoir was set to go on sale and as detailed accounts of it appeared in the news media. The judge in the case, Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia, determined that it was too late to keep the book from readers.
“With hundreds of thousands of copies around the globe — many in newsrooms — the damage is done,” he wrote in rejecting the Justice Department’s argument.
But Judge Lambert also all but predicted the criminal inquiry, writing in his opinion that he was “persuaded that defendant Bolton likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations.”
Separate from the criminal investigation, Mr. Bolton still faces civil litigation that could force him to forfeit the proceeds from his book to the government as punishment for breaching his prepublication review agreement.
Judge Lamberth, who is overseeing that proceeding, wrote in June that Mr. Bolton could have sued the government instead of unilaterally publishing if he was unhappy with the delay.
“This was Bolton’s bet: If he is right and the book does not contain classified information, he keeps the upside mentioned above; but if he is wrong, he stands to lose his profits from the book deal, exposes himself to criminal liability, and imperils national security,” he wrote. “Bolton was wrong.”“This was Bolton’s bet: If he is right and the book does not contain classified information, he keeps the upside mentioned above; but if he is wrong, he stands to lose his profits from the book deal, exposes himself to criminal liability, and imperils national security,” he wrote. “Bolton was wrong.”
Julian E. Barnes and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.