Trump Threatens John Bolton Over New Book
Posted on June 16, 2020
President Donald Trump has threatened John Bolton over his upcoming memoir. Trump says the book could cause Bolton "criminal problems." This is the best thing that could have happened to Bolton and his publisher. It will generate interest in the book and boost book sales.
The book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, is being published by Simon & Schuster. It will be released on June 23, 2020. Bolton will have his first interview about the book with Martha Raddatz on ABC News this coming Sunday, June 21.
A report in Axios says the Trump administration plans to file a lawsuit to stop the book and they are alleging it contains classified information. Trump is quoted as saying, "If he wrote a book and if the book gets out, he's broken the law and I would think you would have criminal problems. I hope so."
This is not the first time Trump has threatened to stop a book. Trump sued Henry Holt to stop them from publishing Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury, but the book was still published.
President Trump is clearly unhappy about the book by his former National Security Adviser. However, he is running out of time to stop it and the upcoming ABC News interview. Martha Raddatz teased the interview on Twitter saying, "I just sat down with John Bolton, Pres. Trump's former trusted adviser, for an exclusive one-on-one interview—with no question off limits."
Bolton is also on Twitter, @AmbJohnBolton, but he doesn't tweet nearly as much as the U.S. president. He did link to a statement from PEN America that links calls for the delay of Bolton's book to censorship.
PEN America's senior director of free expression programs, Summer Lopez, says, "It unfortunately comes as no surprise that the White House is seemingly manipulating and abusing the pre-publication review process to prevent or delay the publication of a book that could include unflattering information about the president. The president has previously used 'formal' legal threats and intimidation to try to keep critical books off the shelves. This time it appears he is willing to corrupt the legitimate pre-publication review process in order to censor a critic and deny the public their right to read the book and come to their own conclusions. This is likely just one more case in which the president has prioritized his own political interests over respect for freedom of expression."
Bolton has said that getting reelected is all that matters to the president. He says in a statement about his book, "I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations."
The book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.