The judge, Royce Lamberth, seemed troubled by aspects of the former national security adviser’s conduct.
A federal judge on Friday appeared disinclined to issue a restraining order reining in publication of John Bolton’s explosive memoir, but expressed deep doubts about the former national security adviser’s decision to unveil the book to the public without official confirmation that it was free of classified information.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said the Justice Department’s request to suppress the book on national security grounds would be difficult to enforce–a stance that echoed Bolton’s argument that there’s no feasible way to undo the dissemination of the tell-all memoir.
“The horse, as we used to say in Texas, seems to be out of the barn,” Lamberth said at the outset of a nearly two-hour hearing conducted by videoconference and telephone due to coronavirus restrictions. “It certainly seems difficult to me about what I could do about those books all over the country.”
Yet Lamberth raised repeated issues with the way Bolton ultimately appeared to short-circuit the review process to rush out the brutal account of his 18-month stint working for President Donald Trump.
The memoir, titled “The Room Where it Happened,” is officially set for publication on Tuesday, but physical and digital copies of the book have been circulating in Washington for several days, generating a flurry of unflattering headlines for the White House. And 200,000 copies of the book have been sent to resellers, according to Bolton’s publisher.
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A federal judge on Friday did not appear inclined to rein in the publication of John Bolton’s explosive memoir despite a request from the Justice Departmenthttps://t.co/BSl4a1ENmc
— POLITICO (@politico) June 19, 2020
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