US President Donald Trump said Monday that his former national security adviser, John Bolton, would have broken the law and face criminal responsibility if a book he wrote about his stay at the White House is published.
Trump told reporters that Bolton knew he had classified information in his book and that he had not completed the clarification process required for any book written by former government officials who had access to sensitive information.
“I will consider every conversation with me as a highly ranked president. So that means if he wrote a book and if the book comes out, he broke the law,” said Trump.
“It’s called criminal responsibility. It’s a great thing,” added Trump.
Attorney General William Barr, speaking at the same event, said that the Justice Department was trying to get Bolton to complete the customs clearance process and “make the necessary deletions from the classified information”.
Trump fired Bolton in September after 519 days of work amid thrilling differences over a wide range of foreign policy issues.
Bolton’s “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” is expected to be released on June 23.
The editor, Simon and Schuster, said in a press release on Friday that the book provides an insider account of Trump’s “inconsistent and dispersed decision-making process”. “
The book details Trump’s relations with China, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Iran, Britain, France and Germany, said the editor. “This is the book Donald Trump doesn’t want you to read,” said Simon and Schuster.
Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the effort to block the publication of the book was bound to fail.
“As usual, threats from the government have nothing to do with safeguarding national security, and everything to do with avoiding scandal and embarrassment,” said Wizner.
Trump said the problem of publishing classified information, including conversations with the president, “becomes even worse if he lies about the conversation, which I understand he may have in some cases.” He said he had not read the book.
“So we will see what happens. They are in court, or they will be soon,” said Trump.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
